The Bishop's Wife

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  It was a shock, and I could feel my jaw drop.

  “I know that it is a lot to ask, but there aren’t many other choices. And you seem to have the right spirit about you when it comes to seeing Carrie fairly,” he added, still staring directly at me.

  “I didn’t know her very well,” I said, and felt again that I had failed Carrie when she was in need. Was this my only hope at penance?

  “I know that. But I thought you could speak about Kelly and what a good mother Carrie was to her.”

  “I—” I did not feel comfortable standing in judgment over another woman’s mothering.

  “Unless you think she wasn’t a good mother?” said Judy. She was holding tightly to her husband’s hand and it was obvious she was fighting back tears. He was her rock, as Kurt had so often been mine.

  “Of course not. She loved her daughter. I can see that in everything about Kelly. She’s a strong little girl who is only doing as well as she is now because she grew up with a mother’s love in everything,” I said fiercely.

  “That’s precisely the sort of thing we’re hoping you will say at the funeral. Kelly will be there, you see,” said Aaron. “We’d like her to hear that from you. Sadly, she isn’t going to hear much good about her mother in the next few years.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “About Carrie’s death, and about Jared and his father. I hate how they have made this all out to be her fault.” Certainly, Carrie had made some of the choices that led to this, but it was clear to me that those choices were influenced by a deep, desperate unhappiness caused by her husband and his father. And even if they hadn’t murdered her, it seemed to me that they were culpable for putting her in that vulnerable position in the first place.

  “Thank you,” Judy whispered. Her head went down, and it seemed as if whatever strength she had mustered up to ask me for this favor was gone now.

  “We’re going to try to get custody of Kelly,” said Aaron. “It’s a long shot, according to our lawyers, but at the very least, we want Kelly to know that we love her. And if we don’t get custody, we’re going to try for mandated visitation as grandparents. We don’t want Kelly to hear only from her father and grandfather about her mother. Or about anything else, for that matter. I don’t like how either of them think about the world.”

  “Well, I hope you do get custody,” I said honestly.

  His eyes widened and I had the sense that he was taking note of this in his mind, which had the capacity to remember everything. He was a formidable opponent, I thought, and wondered who would win if he and Alex Helm were set against each other. It made me happy to think that Aaron Weston was the stronger of the two. He was more self-possessed and he would certainly sound better, more reasonable, to the average person in Utah.

  “Would you be willing to give that opinion of the situation in court?” Aaron asked.

  I considered for a long moment, then nodded. The danger was that I would fail and become an enemy of Jared and Alex Helm, and then I would have no access to Kelly at all, but I had to take a chance to get her into a better situation.

  “That is more than we had hoped for,” said Aaron. The warmth of emotion in his voice surprised me. “But I still have to ask about the funeral. We need to get the programs printed and there aren’t very many speakers as it is.”

  “Kurt is speaking, isn’t he?” I said.

  Aaron nodded. “But I thought a woman’s perspective would be … kinder.”

  I thought again about Jared and Alex Helm, and I shook my head. “I think it’s best if I don’t speak at the funeral at this point. I’d like to make sure I can see Kelly until the trial. They’ve been asking me to come in and take care of her when they have to go out. It’s been my one way of making sure she is well.”

  Aaron’s hopeful smile disappeared, but he patted Judy’s shoulder. “We can’t fault her for that.”

  “No,” she said softly.

  “We believe Carrie was coming home to Kelly that night. That had to be why she was in Wendover,” said Aaron.

  “Have the police said when she was killed?” I asked.

  “Yes. They told us it was just hours before they found the body,” said Aaron. “I know it hasn’t been reported on the news, but I think it will all come out soon enough.”

  So if Jared Helm had killed Carrie, he must have cold-bloodedly driven out to meet her somewhere and planned to do it. I wasn’t sure it fit with the image I had of Jared in my mind. I believed he could have killed her in anger, but this? Maybe it was someone else, after all. “I am so sorry.” What else could I say to her parents?

  “Jared claims he never left the house that night. He claims that the reporters have footage of the whole night. He couldn’t have gotten out of the house without being seen,” said Aaron. His face was dark with anger. “But somehow, he is responsible even so. He is the one who drove her to do what she did,” Aaron continued. “And it doesn’t matter whose hand was on her neck when she died. It was his fault for forcing her to it.”

  “Well, God doesn’t see responsibility the same way that the law does,” I admitted.

  Aaron took a deep breath, gave me a searching look, and nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then?” said Aaron.

  I nodded and stood, then showed them out. I felt a headache coming on, and went to take some Advil before I headed over to babysit Kelly, all the while feeling a knot in my stomach over my promise to testify against her father in a custody dispute with the Westons. Was I right or wrong? I had been wrong so many times in this case that I couldn’t trust my instincts anymore. All I knew was that I loved Kelly and wanted the best for her.

  We spent several hours playing with Barbies, something I had never done with my boys. They had scorned dolls, though they had played with action figures plenty. Kelly’s Barbies had lots of fancy dresses, but Kelly wasn’t very interested in changing their outfits. She preferred acting out different escape-from-jail story lines. We played them over and over again as I tried to guide her away from shootouts and other violent scenarios, but my heart went colder and colder as I thought of what this house had become for her.

  When Jared and Alex came home, they called for Kelly and she jumped. Her face went expressionless and she hurriedly put her Barbies into their box. “Grandpa doesn’t like Barbies,” she told me. “He says their clothes are too small and too tight.”

  She scurried downstairs while I put the Barbie box under her bed. I went down after her, in time to see Alex Helm showing Kelly the black dress that had been purchased for her to wear for her mother’s funeral. She put it on dutifully in the bathroom, then came down to show it off. It looked too big for her, boxy at the top, and went down to her ankles, but it was modest, at the very least. There wasn’t a hint of lace or any feminine detailing on it. I supposed Kelly would never wear it again after this, but still, it seemed a strange dress for a little girl.

  “Perfect,” said Alex. “You look like an angel. Now go take it off and wash your hands for dinner.” He turned to me and dismissed me. “Thank you, Sister Wallheim. We’ll see you at the funeral.”

  I had no interest in arguing with the man at this point, so I walked home in the rain.

  JOSEPH CALLED ME that night to tell me that Willow was expecting in early September. I should have been over the moon. I tried to act it, enthusiastically offering congratulations and all the help I could. Was she sick? Did they need meals? Did they need any help with housework while she was in the early stages? Could I help take her to doctor’s appointments?

  Joseph declined all my offers and said that they were just fine for now.

  “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” I asked.

  “Not yet, Mom. We’re going in for an ultrasound in about three weeks and they think they will be able to tell.”

  In three weeks, I would find out if I was going to have a granddaughter. The thought terrified me. How could I protect a girl in this world? Somehow it didn’t seem the right time for the next generation to start being
born. We hadn’t figured out this generation yet.

  CHAPTER 25

  Kurt was as proud of the coming baby as if he were the father. Samuel was thrilled at the idea of being an uncle. Unlike me, neither of them seemed to worry about whether it was a boy or a girl. But we still had to deal with the funeral for Carrie Helm. I am sure that people all over the world have already noticed that births and deaths happen at the same time, but it still seems like a strange thing to me. In the end, I focused on the list of things to get done. Despite the funeral in the afternoon, I spent the morning shopping for a gender-neutral gift for Joseph and Willow and the grandbaby-to-be.

  I wrapped the present and put it on the sideboard in the kitchen, so that it would be visible when we had our next family dinner. That was when Kurt came over and put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

  “A present? How could that be a bad idea?” I asked.

  “It just seems a little soon. Willow is only—what—three months along? A lot of things could happen between now and six months from now.”

  Was he suggesting that the baby wouldn’t survive? “Kurt, that is the last thought that I should be having right now.”

  “I just want to make sure you don’t get hurt,” said Kurt with a sad little shrug.

  He was always trying to protect me when I wouldn’t protect myself. “The only way to not get hurt would be never to hope for anything and never to love. Is that what you really want?” I asked him.

  “No,” he admitted. Then he put on his tie, kissed me, and went to the church to prepare for Carrie Weston Helm’s funeral.

  I came a little afterward, dressed in a wool skirt and sensible shoes. I hadn’t volunteered to help Cheri Tate with this one, though maybe I should have, considering the fraught circumstances.

  The funeral was more than a bit schizophrenic. There were flowers everywhere, but they seemed like two completely different sets: one loudly pink and big and feminine, the other more matronly and subdued in color and size. The chapel was also divided clearly. The center section and the right were for the ward. The left was for Carrie’s high school friends, women who were her age, some struggling with young children, others standing alone in clothing that seemed not quite appropriate for a funeral, a little too revealing and not nearly black enough. I hated that I thought that, but I did. I shuddered to think it was what Alex Helm would have said.

  Kurt had insisted that the news cameras stay outdoors, but that didn’t mean there weren’t reporters there, in disguise. Or some not so much in disguise. I saw several notebooks flip out when Kurt began his talk. I don’t know what they were scribbling down so feverishly. Kurt’s talk was largely standard funeral fare. He talked about Christ’s atonement covering all sins, even the sins that we think are the worst. Pedophiles, murderers, and adulteresses. He read Christ’s response to the Pharisees about the woman caught in adultery. He didn’t specifically talk about Carrie being an adulteress but he did look out at the audience and ask quite directly who here was so clean of sin that they could cast the first stone.

  I felt a little chill run down my spine at that, and was sure everyone else felt something similar. I thought how good Kurt had become at speaking in just a year. His first week as bishop, he could never have imagined this kind of emotional response from the audience.

  After Kurt finished, Judy Weston got up. She had brought props with her for her speech. Normally, Kurt might have disapproved, but I was glad to see that he had no reaction to this. Judy showed the mourners a photo of Carrie’s high school graduation. She had also brought one of Carrie’s favorite books, Bridge to Terabithia, and read a passage.

  Then Judy brought out Carrie’s prom dress, which was pale pink with just a little lace at the bodice. She talked about Carrie’s love of laughter and comedies, and her piano playing, for which she had won awards in high school. I was shocked to realize I’d had no idea Carrie Helm played the piano. No wonder Kelly had seemed to sit so naturally when she sat on my lap. There was no piano in the Helm house, but Carrie must have taught her daughter about music.

  “Carrie loved her daughter beyond anything,” Judy went on. “I’m going to read from a letter that Carrie wrote about Kelly, a letter I did not see until recently.”

  I went stiff at this. Was this one of the letters that was to be used in the trial against Jared Helm for abuse? I looked at Kurt and saw that he was holding tightly to the arms of the chair. He didn’t want to ask Judy Weston to sit down, but he might have to.

  I looked at Aaron Weston and saw a muted smile of satisfaction on his face, and wondered how much of this was his doing. From the first time I’d met him, I’d thought that Judy was manipulated by him. But I should have trusted Judy more.

  The paragraph she read was simply Carrie saying that she would do anything to be with her daughter, that there was no threat that would keep her away, that there was no hurt she would not endure to be at her daughter’s side and keep her from harm. Then she sat down and it was Aaron’s turn.

  The smile was gone from Aaron Weston’s face when he stood, and I wondered if I had misread it. Except for a niggling feeling on that first day, everything Aaron Weston had done had made me believe him to be a deeply caring father and a devout, humble Mormon. His talk was one of the best I had ever heard. It was obvious he had spoken at many funerals before, and knew exactly how to engage the grieving family members in the audience. He looked directly at Kelly below him and told her that her mother would be waiting for her, in heaven. He described a scene of a beautiful young woman waiting in a garden for the one thing that would make her heart complete.

  “Heaven is a place of peace. No one there feels any degree of pain. They may wish for things. They may hope. But there is no impatience there, no sense of a long passage of time. They wait easily and happily. And I know that Carrie is waiting to see Kelly again. It may be a hundred years, but she will wait there still, and she will be as beautiful as she was the last day that she saw you.”

  I felt a sting of pain at the thought of my daughter, waiting. But in Aaron Weston’s garden, it did not seem such a terrible thing.

  Aaron Weston continued, speaking to his granddaughter in the first row, sandwiched between Jared and Alex Helm. “She will kneel to greet you, Kelly, and she will open her arms and she will tell you that you are her little girl, just as you are now. And at that moment, you will not remember any of the sadness that you feel today. It will all be forgotten. There will only be forgiveness between you. She will be cleaned from all her sins and so will you and you will be two shining daughters of God forever.”

  If Kurt was good at speechmaking, Aaron Weston was ten times better. I was wiping at my face and wishing that I had brought more tissues. People sometimes said they’d had a feeling about a man who would turn out to be a prophet, that the Holy Spirit had whispered that this man would be the leader of the Mormon church someday. I felt like that about Aaron Weston at that moment. He was the man who should raise his granddaughter. I had no doubt of that.

  Finally, he read some scriptures about heaven from Revelation that supported his vision, but it was that beautiful vision of a garden that stayed with me, long after the songs were over and the funeral luncheon was cleaned up. It made me think of Tobias Torstensen’s garden, so carefully kept and so beautiful, even after his death. After the service, there were two distinct lines where people waited to give their respects, one to Jared and Alex Helm—and Kelly—the other to the Westons. Some people only went to offer their respects to one line. Some went to both.

  I tried to force myself to go to the Westons first, and then maybe I could manage the other, but I found my legs would not move forward. I was caught at the door of the chapel, reliving my own daughter’s funeral, where I had had to stand in a line very like that one, and had struggled to say a single word to the few mourners who were there with us. What words could possibly be adequate, on either side? I had come. I was mourning with them. That was the most I c
ould do.

  I noticed that Gwen Ferris and her husband, Brad, were here together. I saw them greeting the Helms, but noticed they left immediately after that without saying anything to the Westons. I suppose they hadn’t known Carrie’s parents. There was something in Gwen Ferris’s expression that struck me. I was trying to figure out what it was when I was startled by a familiar voice.

  “Mom, how are you doing?”

  I turned around and found my middle son, Kenneth, was there in the hallway by the back door. I realized my hand had flown to my throat. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  He looked thin. He hadn’t been taking care of himself. I wondered if he thought to eat more than once a day. He was wearing the suit I had bought for him when he was eighteen, just starting to think about a mission. It was too small for him across the shoulders and in the sleeves.

  I stared at him and was surprised that he looked more like my own father than like Kurt. He had my father’s hawkish nose, and my father’s lean face, as well as my father’s ears poking out of slicked-back dark hair. When had that happened?

  “Dad told me it was today and I didn’t know if I could make it. But I did. It was lovely.”

  “But you didn’t know Carrie Helm, did you?” I tried to think back on the timeline. When had Kenneth last lived at home?

  “No, I didn’t know her. I just knew that you were upset by her death and I wanted to come and support you.”

  I teared up again. “Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.” I wouldn’t have thought Kenneth, of all my sons, would have thought of my feelings. He seemed so distant of late, coming rarely to family dinners because he was busy with his own life in the city.

  “I know you’ll be fine. But I wanted you to know that I’m here for you. If you need someone to talk to. Dad is great and all that, but I know he is sometimes really well—orthodox.”

  I stared at Kenneth for a long moment. “Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked. I had known he hadn’t been attending church for a while, but I’d hoped it was just a stage.