My heart throbbed. I loved Kurt and I loved Samuel. I knew they loved each other. So why were they hurting each other like this? And why couldn’t I figure out some way to fix it all easily, with a kiss and a hug, like I managed to when Samuel was little?
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Samuel, who was standing so upright and rigid that Kurt would have congratulated him on looking like a proper Eagle Scout. Which Samuel had been at age fourteen. Because he knew it mattered to his father and he wanted to honor the tradition of his brothers. But that had been four years ago and things were different now.
A part of me wanted to excuse my husband’s behavior because, as bishop, he was overwhelmed with so many problems on all sides. He was supposed to be able to come up with spiritual answers for everyone in the ward, as well as in our family. Maybe Kurt was angry at God that he wasn’t getting a pass on problems like this as a kind of blessing for his five-year commitment of service as bishop.
If only he didn’t see Samuel’s coming out to us as a problem.
“It’s not your fault,” said Samuel. One shoulder sagged then.
I went over and patted him gently. “I thought he was going to get it,” I said. The Kurt I had always loved wasn’t usually so bullheaded. Well, except when he was. And then he always apologized afterward. But I wasn’t sure this was the kind of thing you could apologize for later and go on as usual.
“Do you really think I should go to graduation?” Samuel asked, only half looking at me.
I knew I was about to cry sloppy tears over this, and I didn’t want Samuel to have to deal with that on top of everything else. But that he would ask me what I wanted—didn’t that show he was the same thoughtful kid he’d always been? He wasn’t being rebellious or trying to fight.
I took a deep breath and said, “I think it would make your father happy if you went. How much do you care about that?”
Samuel thought it over. “I’m never going to be who he wants me to be. I might as well accept it now.”
“Samuel.” I held his hand tightly and wouldn’t let him squirm away. “He is proud of you. Don’t doubt that. Whatever is going on with him right now, I don’t understand it. But he’ll get over it. Things will get better. I know they will. And this is not because he doesn’t love you.”
“Do you think we could just go out to eat instead then? Do what I want? Could he be okay with that?”
“Yes,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “I’ll go talk to him. You think about where you want to go.” I was going to make this happen. For Kurt, it would be a concession, but he needed to meet Samuel where he was.
I knocked on the door to Kurt’s office, but didn’t wait for him to tell me to come in. He was sitting at his desk, head in hands.
“Have I ruined everything?” Kurt asked. His eyes were red and he only lifted his head a couple of inches to look up at me. I wondered if he had been crying or praying—or perhaps both.
“Come out now and see. I told Samuel we’d take him out to eat wherever he wants to go.”
Kurt hesitated a long moment. “Maybe you should take him without me.”
“Kurt, that will only make him feel worse.” But I was so relieved that he wasn’t pressing the graduation ceremony issue anymore.
“I just don’t know if he wants me to be there. It seems like he used to ask for my advice about everything. He used to want to be like me. And now—” Kurt turned away and took in a gasping breath. I could see him wipe at his eyes.
“I think he still wants to be like you, Kurt. He just has to find his own way to do that,” I said.
We went to Chuck E. Cheese’s as Samuel ironically suggested. It was where Samuel used to ask us to take him for birthdays when he was eight or nine years old.
When we arrived, it was almost entirely empty. We ordered pizza, and Samuel went off to play a few games before it came. Then he sat down and I felt a lump in my throat, thinking about how young he still was.
“So, what’s happening with your apartment? Did everything go well signing the papers?” I asked.
“I’m moving in the first of July,” Samuel said. “I want to get a head start on a job near campus and, you know, get acquainted with the area.”
That soon?
I felt as if he were tearing me in half with those words. One part of me wanted to cheer him on as he moved forward in his life. The other part of me wanted to keep him at home forever.
I would miss his keen insights into people and world events, and the way he saw the best in everyone, including me. I would miss his laughter and his knack for guessing what was going to happen at the end of a TV show (though I always said I hated it). I would even miss him finishing off every baked good that I made, no matter how huge the quantity. I’d really have to work on cutting back my recipe sizes now.
And once he—my youngest boy—left the house, what would happen to the identity I’d cultivated for the last twenty-five years as a full-time mother? I would have to look at my own life and figure out what more I wanted to do with it. Did I want to go back to school? Do more charity work? Get a job of some kind?
The world has no need for a drone, rang in my head whenever I thought of an empty nest. It was a line from an old Mormon hymn that described the way many people looked at those who were not contributing meaningfully to their communities. Even stay-at-home mothers of five grown sons.
“Well, you’ll have to cover the costs of the apartment and your own food. You’re not supposed to use your college fund unless you’re taking classes,” said Kurt.
“I know that, Dad,” Samuel said irritably. “You don’t have to worry about me coming to bug you for money. I’ve got a job.”
“What about your mission money?” asked Kurt. When the boys were tiny, we taught them to pay 10 percent of any money they got to tithing, and another 40 percent to a mission savings account. They could only ever spend half of what they earned, though we’d always tried to give them a good allowance for chores so they didn’t miss the other half much.
But when Joseph had decided to get married his freshman year instead of going on a mission, he’d used his mission fund for the deposit on a married student apartment, which was a lot more than sharing with five other guys. Kurt had been disappointed, but he’d gotten over it. Just as he would get over this.
Samuel was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’d still like to go on a mission.”
Kurt went very still. I could see his knuckles go white on the fork he was gripping. “You’d still like to go on a mission?”
Samuel stared at Kurt’s hands, and I could see his own knuckles had gone white from being clenched so hard. “Do you think the church would want me? I mean, if I’m openly gay, would they still assign me to a real mission?”
Kurt let out a long breath. “Of course they’d want you. Why wouldn’t they want you? You’d make a great missionary!”
“With me—like this?” said Samuel, nearly choking halfway through the sentence.
“Well, you’d need a missionary haircut,” said Kurt after a moment. “And a lot of white shirts and ties.”
“Yeah,” Samuel said, his face reddening as Kurt leaned over and tousled his overlong hair. “I guess I would.”
“You’re already eighteen. You can turn in papers whenever you’re ready,” said Kurt. “You just have to have an interview with your bishop and get started on a medical exam.”
I wanted to put my hands up and tell Kurt to slow down. He didn’t need to push Samuel into this. The church now said that young men could go any time between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.
“I think I’d like to finish at least a semester of college first,” said Samuel. “You know, make sure I know what I’m getting into.”
“You can get your papers in this summer, then. Just put your availability date as December or January, whenever you want afte
r classes are over.”
I’d sent three sons on missions already, and each time, it was hard to see them go. For two years, they were supposed to focus entirely on the work, which meant weekly emails or letters and no more than that. Two phone calls a year, for Mother’s Day and Christmas. That was it. Parents were strongly discouraged from visiting their children in person, no matter how close they happened to be stationed to the family home, though it was usually some distance away.
If watching a child leave for college was painful, watching him leave for a mission was worse. I was angry, but was it because Kurt was pushing Samuel to go on a mission I felt he wasn’t ready for? Or was it because I wanted to keep Samuel to myself? I wasn’t sure. And the truth was, Kurt was right to have confidence in Samuel as a missionary. He was cheerful, understanding, and the kind of person everyone was drawn to. He wouldn’t be pushy about his message. He’d just try to help people who wanted help.
The pizza came and we all dug in, no sounds but slurping and gasping from hot cheese burns for a while. When we were all finished and even the crumbs had been picked up by Samuel’s licked fingers, there was a long silence.
Then Samuel said, “I’m scared. I’ve been terrified since the day I came out.” His eyes were blazing, and in spite of his words, he was courageous enough to look at us squarely. Another reason he would make a good missionary. He didn’t mince words, my Samuel.
“Afraid of what? That people will tell you you don’t belong in the church? That God doesn’t love you?” said Kurt, just as honestly.
I cringed, but I didn’t interrupt.
Samuel’s eyes filled with tears, and I could see his shoulders shaking. “Yes,” he got out in a whisper.
“Well, some people will say things like that to you. Do you think you can handle that? From people in the church, as well as outside of it?” Kurt asked.
Samuel took a moment to think. “I don’t need other people to tell me what’s right. Or if God loves me. You two always taught me to find out answers for myself. I’ve done that.”
Kurt nodded shortly, then said, “Look, Samuel. I love you. I’m not going to say that I’m glad that you’re gay. I wish your life were easier. I wish that you had a path that was laid out with fewer challenges. But I’m not God. I’m not the ideal father for you or anyone, which is why you have a perfect father in heaven who sees how strong you are and isn’t afraid like I am that it will be too much for you to bear.”
I reached for Samuel’s hand. He pulled away to wipe at his face, but I reached over to hold it again. I was glad that even the handful of preschool-age children and parents had left now.
Kurt thumped Samuel firmly on the back. “I wish I could fix everything for you, but I can’t anymore. Maybe I never could. It’s a hard thing for a father to learn. But anything you need, just ask me. I’ll do my best.”
“You really don’t think I’m wrong somehow, then?” asked Samuel, smiling with childish delight and surprise, as if he had just been given the present he’d asked Santa for and never thought he would see under the tree.
Kurt had tears on his face now, too. His voice was thick. “I love you. That’s all I know. I’m afraid, too. But I think that if anyone can face this challenge and ace it, it’s you, Samuel.”
Samuel took a deep breath, then nodded. “Yeah.”
So there it was, the beginning of something new.
We got back into the car, and Kurt drove us home in near silence. He and Samuel started belching about halfway home, some kind of bizarre contest between them. I rolled down the window and rolled my eyes, pretending to be more annoyed than I was.
As I went to bed that night, I wondered how long this fragile peace between them would last.
Chapter 25
The following Tuesday night, we had our weekly Relief Society meeting. For a long time, it had been called “Homemaking,” and the classes were all on cooking, sewing, and cleaning. But as more women started to work and the General Relief Society Presidency of the worldwide church realized that unmarried or divorced women might be frustrated with a meeting that didn’t focus on their needs, things changed. Sometimes we had a spiritual lesson. Sometimes holiday craft activities, or even a game night.
This time, we were having a dinner and a short presentation. One of the women in the ward, Yolanda Jones, had visited Egypt over the summer and had become involved with a charity group. She wanted to get us all involved too, and Kurt had approved it, despite the fact that fundraising in the church building is usually frowned upon.
I arrived a few minutes early and found myself helping Sheri Tate set up chairs. Emma Ashby arrived next, and she stared daggers at Sheri, who reacted by ignoring her. I had no idea what was going on between the two of them, but ended up sitting next to Emma out of sympathy. I wished Anna were here, but she didn’t usually come to these meetings. She insisted they were optional, and that it was her prerogative to decide whether they were uplifting to her or not.
“How are you doing?” I said to Emma. “I am so impressed that you feel up to attending something like this tonight.”
“I don’t need to be coddled,” said Emma, her chin high. “I’m not a child.”
“Of course not.” She was so different than she had been the last time I had seen her. It worried me, the way she swung back and forth. I wondered if she was entirely sane.
“I just meant that with your two children out of school for the summer, you must feel overwhelmed by everything going on in your life,” I finished lamely, unable to bring up Carl’s death so casually.
“My children are perfectly capable of managing by themselves for a couple of hours on a weeknight,” said Emma. “They’re teenagers, not infants.”
“Of course. And with a cell phone, I’m sure that you can keep in touch with them if there’s an emergency,” I said soothingly.
Emma glanced at her cell phone as Sarah Andrews entered and sat on the other side of the room. Emma typed something in, looking up as another member, Erica Grange, came in, then typed some more. Her hands made jittery movements, and if I hadn’t known it was strictly against the rules of the church, I would have thought she was high on something.
“Emma?” I said, trying to feel her out.
She looked up at me and her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “Do you think she’s prettier than I am?” she asked, nodding to Janel Eckerton, the frazzled young mother of twin boys who had moved into the old Helm house just weeks before.
I hesitated, confused by her question.
“Tell me,” Emma insisted, her face flushed. “What do you think of her?”
“I don’t know how to compare,” I said cautiously. “She’s so much younger, and she has a completely different body type.” Janel was very thin and tall, and her build was more gangly and birdlike than graceful.
“You do think she’s prettier, then,” said Emma. She typed something else into her phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m giving each woman a score.”
“What? That’s terrible. Why would you do that?” It sounded like some adolescent game my sons might have made up, and which Kurt and I would have had to lecture them severely about to stop it from ever happening again.
“I’m trying to figure out who Carl was having an affair with,” said Emma intensely. She was chewing at her lower lip, making it bleed again. “It has to be one of the women in the ward. I thought this was the best place to come and observe them all in action. One of them killed him, and she’s not going to just step forward and admit it openly.”
I gaped at her. “Emma, you can’t—” I started to say.
But by then Donna Ringel, the chorister, was standing in the front of the room, and it was time to sing the opening hymn.
Emma didn’t sing. She just kept craning her neck around and making notes on her phone. I think she was even scoring
the elderly women in the ward, who were sorely unlikely to have had an affair with her husband, whether he was transgender or not.
I hadn’t told her anything about Grant Rhodes, and I resolved I never would. Not if this was the way she reacted to jealousy.
But I instinctively found myself looking around the room myself and wondering how Emma was evaluating them. We didn’t actually know who those letters were from. If the police were right and the killer was a woman, then it was most likely someone in the church who knew Carl. My skin crawled. How could I tell which ones were the most likely?
Tanya Marisco, who had a D-cup chest and didn’t seem to wear temple garment clothing to cover it?
Debbie Levitski, who’d had a complete makeover about two months ago—hair, wardrobe, and makeup? She’d gone from rather homely looking to quite pretty. Was it for her husband’s sake, for her own sake? Or for someone else? Her preschool-aged children hadn’t liked it at all, I remembered. They still seemed to look at her as if she were a stranger.
Kristin Allison, who wore so much perfume that you could practically cut through the air around her with a knife?
Gretchen Torres, who looked bored, and kept playing a game on her phone during the lesson, even during the slideshow, when the light from her phone glowed noticeably in the dark room? Why had she come if she had no desire to be here? Had she wanted to get away from her husband and kids?
There was hardly a woman in the room I didn’t suspect, now that Emma had planted the nasty thought in my head.
When it was time for refreshments, which were set up on two tables—one for cookies, the other for drinks Mormons could imbibe without breaking the Word of Wisdom, from sparkling punch to hot chocolate—Emma stood up and got ready to leave. I followed her as she walked outside. She hadn’t brought a car this time, so she was walking home.
“Emma!” I called.
She didn’t turn around until I was at her heels. “What is it?” she snapped, irritated.
I had jogged to catch up to her, so I was breathless when I said, “You can’t let your jealousy eat you up.” Relief Society was supposed to be a community of friends, not an arena for competition.
His Right Hand Page 18