Sara’s mother would’ve found it hilarious that Sara was on the other side of this argument. “God has given us the tools to help all of them, but they’re being denied access.”

He laughed. “Your feistiness is one of the reasons I like having you around, Dr. Earnshaw.”

Sara looked at the ground so that he would not see her eyes roll. She’d known he’d eventually get around to calling her feisty.

They had reached the clearing. She could feel the sun baking her bare shoulder. Women were tending pots over open fires because they were always cooking or boiling sheets and clothes and the endless number of cloth napkins. Gwen stood with her hands on her hips, barking orders to frightened-looking minions. Sara felt her stomach clench at the sight of her. If the woman really was a nurse, she would have known exactly what she was doing when she deprived Tommy of a peaceful end to his short life.

Dash said, “Dr. Earnshaw. You remember my lovely little ladies.”

The girls were already seated at one of the long, communal picnic tables. Sara ran through their names—Esther, Charity, Edna, Grace, Hannah and Joy of the Wary Eye.

Their manners were impeccable as they simultaneously offered, “Good afternoon, Dr. Earnshaw.”

Grace, the talkative one, excitedly scooted down the bench so that Sara could sit beside her. She practically trilled when her wish was granted. Sara stroked the girl’s wispy hair. She saw two small indentations in the skin of her forehead. Old chicken pox scars.

Dash said, “Thank you, sisters.”

The women from the fires had approached with the meal. Steak for Dash, bowls of stew for the girls, and a plate of cheese, crackers and fruit for Sara. Her stomach growled, but the thought of eating more cheese made her tongue feel thick in her mouth.

Grace asked, “Dr. Earnshaw, where did you meet your husband?”

“At the hospital where I worked.” Sara felt her lips part in surprise. She had answered the question without thinking, and she had answered it incorrectly. She had met Jeffrey at a high school football game.

She had met Will at the hospital.

“What were you wearing?” Grace asked.

“Uhm,” Sara felt weepy again. She chewed a cracker to give herself time to recover. “At hospitals, doctors wear scrubs. Green pants and a matching shirt.”

“And a white coat,” Esther said. She’d remembered Sara’s description of the white coat ceremony from the day before.

“Yes,” Sara said. “And a white coat. And a stethoscope. And black rubber shoes because doctors stand around all day and our feet hurt.”

Grace steered the conversation back to her favorite topic. “Did you wear a wedding dress when you went to get married at the core house?”

“Courthouse,” Joy said, using the you stupid idiot tone that Sara had often adopted with own little sister. “It’s where the judge is. He can marry people.”

“Papa Martin’s going to the courthouse,” Edna said. She had a serious look on her face. “The judge is going to make it so that he won’t ever come back.”

Dash cleared his throat. He shook his head at Edna.

Sara made a mental note to drive herself crazy with that new factoid when she was locked up later. Martin Novak was the obvious proxy for Papa Martin. The bank robber was going to be sentenced at the courthouse in a few weeks. Sara knew from Faith’s grumblings that Novak had spent time with an antigovernment group on the southern border. If Martin Novak was Gwen’s father, then her marriage to Dash would’ve conferred upon him an enormous amount of legitimacy. It also meant that Gwen would have been steeped in the racist ideology of the IPA for most of her life.

Grace sniffed to let everyone know her feelings were hurt. Her bottom lip rolled out. “I was only asking about her dress.”

Sara smoothed down Grace’s hair. She thought about Will’s favorite black dress. His pleased look every time she went to the effort of grooming and shaving and plucking and wearing heels for him.

Actually, anytime Sara made an effort especially for Will, he was happy.

She told Grace, “I wore a regular dress, but it had pretty little flowers stitched here,” she indicated the neckline. “He likes—liked—me to wear my hair down, so I left it on my shoulders even though it was very hot outside. And I wore high heels that pinched my toes.”

“How high?” the question had rushed out of Joy’s mouth. She blushed. “I mean, because you’re tall. Men don’t like that. Is what I hear.”

“The right men do,” Sara told her, a lesson that had been hard-learned during her teen years as she’d waited for the boys to catch up to her height. “And the right man isn’t intimidated by a woman who’s comfortable with who she is.”

“Amen.” Dash had freed his hand from the sling so he could cut his steak. The knife was long with a serrated blade.

Sara wondered if they counted the silverware when the table was cleared.

Grace said, “I want to wear a white dress to my wedding, with flowers and horses.”

Joy rolled her eyes.

“And ice cream.” Grace giggled.

Dash said, “You’ll get ice cream tonight.”

There was a chorus of cheers.

He told Sara, “We’re having a celebration to mark the completion of our greatest achievement.”

His sly smile said he knew that he had her attention.

He said, “Tomorrow is a very important day for us.”

Sara did not give him the satisfaction of asking the obvious question.

“Little ones, listen to Daddy.” Dash jabbed his fork into the potato. “You must put us all in your thoughts tonight. Enjoy the celebration and the ice cream, but understand that what we are about to embark on is a serious mission. Everything we’ve been working toward for the last three years comes down to tomorrow.”

Three years?

He said, “Daddy and his men are going to go out into the wicked world, and we’re going to remind them what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they sat down and wrote that glorious document.”

Grace said, “One nation under God.”

“Exactly,” Dash confirmed, though the line was from the Pledge of Allegiance, not the Constitution. “The country needs to be shocked back into its senses. It is time to send the message. We have gotten so far off track that the white man doesn’t know his place anymore.”

He forked a mound of potato into his mouth. Obviously, he wasn’t finished with his speech, but he wasn’t content to play the game without Sara.

She cleared her throat. “What kind of message?”

He took his time drinking from the glass of water. “The Message will make it clear that the white man will not be conquered. Not by any other race. Not by a certain type of woman. Not by anyone or anything.”

Sara waited for the real Dash to make his appearance. She saw the early indications in his cheekbones, which got sharper, and his skin, which blanched with zeal.

He told Sara, “Those people, those mongrels, are trying to breed us out of existence. They’re infiltrating our culture with their music and their easy morals. They’re taking advantage of our women. Selling them a false bill of goods about who they are, where their place is in society.”

“Like Michelle,” Edna said.

“Yes!” Dash slammed his fist into the table. The mask had fully dropped. “Michelle is a living example of the kind of woman whose selfish and hedonistic choices are destroying the natural order. They have to be made an example of. Witches used to be burned in this country.”

Wrong again. No witches were burned during the Salem trials. They were either hanged or pressed to death.

“It’s a man’s job to decide what’s best for his family.” Dash banged the table again. “Just look at what got us here. White men wielding white power have protected white society for thousands of years.”

Sara bit her lip so that she would not antagonize him.

Dash seemed to take note of her reticence. He wiped his mouth with one of the cloth napkins. He slipped back into character, smiling at Sara. “I’m not racist. I’m for my race. I’m not sexist. I’m for my gender.” He shrugged, as if the logic held up. “The white man is being pushed aside. Our benevolence, our generosity, is leading us to the brink of extinction. We ceded too many rights to women, to the negro and the brown man. We dangled the hope of opportunity, and they took too much for their own advantage.”

The girls were all looking up at their father as if he was delivering the Sermon on the Mount. To Sara, it sounded more like Neo-Nazi pop-psychology. Dash had stumbled upon one of the many vulnerabilities in the contact hypothesis. Levels of prejudice were generally reduced when reasonable people shared interpersonal contact. It was hard to hold on to a stereotype about an entire race when you were face to face with an individual who disproved your prejudice. One of the biggest obstacles to success was the denial of the opposing group’s equal status to your own.