The Word - Mary G. Thompson

After her parents split up, seven-year-old Lisa's father convinces her to leave out the window in the middle of the night. After all, according to their religion, she belongs to him, and it is her duty to obey him. Ever the dutiful daughter, at least on the outside, and confused about the sinful changes in her mother (she's cut her hair, there's a new man around, she's had a baby with him), Lisa complies.

She spends the next nine years on the run before the police finally catch up with her father, and she is returned to a mother who is "dead" in the eyes of their religion. But her father always had a plan for when the law came and took what was his—a plan that was set in motion the moment the police arrived at their home.

Now Lisa must make a decision: follow the plan and go home again with the hope that she'll see her brother and father again, or risk everything to figure out what life could be when she makes her own choices.