“I can’t help it,” Emma said, and in the harsh glare of the streetlights, I felt like I could see straight to the bones in her face. How much weight had she lost in the past month? She hadn’t had any extra to begin with.
“Emma, if Carl was having an affair before he was killed, you need to let it go. Forgive him and move on with your life.” I tried to keep my voice down, because I wasn’t sure who might be listening through an open window. We weren’t that far from the church, either, and on a night like this, our voices could carry all the way back to the parking lot.
“And forgive her, too, I suppose? Is that what you think I should do? Even if she has never asked for forgiveness? Never even admitted what she has done wrong?” Emma started walking again.
It seemed politic to go along with Emma at the moment. “That’s for God to judge, surely, not us.” Would quoting scripture at her bring her back to her senses? I was reluctant to make it sound like I was calling her to repentance.
Emma turned back to me, and I could see her whole body shaking as she took in long, shallow breaths. What had she taken? Had a doctor prescribed something to keep her functioning? Had she started drinking Red Bull? Or was all this natural? “Whoever it was, she killed him. You think she should get away with that?” she demanded.
I tried to put a hand on her, but she pulled away. In that moment, I could feel the rhythm of her tremors in my bones. There was something very wrong here. She needed serious help, and she didn’t realize it. “No, but you need to let the police deal with this,” I said. Advice Kurt would probably very much appreciate that I follow myself.
She started walking again, and I had to move swiftly after her to hear what she said next. “The police are doing nothing. All this time, and all they say is that he wasn’t—that he—” Her voice strained and broke, and she started pounding her fists into her legs. It had to hurt, but she didn’t seem to even notice.
I paused, trying to think of what Kurt could do for her. Could he force her into psychiatric care? As bishop, probably not.
“Emma, you need to think about who Carl really was. Who you were together. You knew him better than they did. You knew what a good man he was,” I said firmly, echoing Kurt’s words.
“Yes. He was a good man.” She let out a little gasp. “Which is why I have to find her. She’s the one who lured him into it. He would never have done anything like that unless someone pressured him. It had to be her fault.”
“Sometimes good men make mistakes,” I said. I didn’t really want to argue this with her. I just wanted her to accept that it wasn’t all some other woman’s fault. If there had even been another woman.
“Not Carl. Not my Carl,” Emma said fiercely.
“I’m sure that if you look carefully at your marriage, you will see some areas that were flawed,” I said.
Emma lunged toward me and slapped my face.
My ears rang. She had a strong arm, I realized. A dangerous woman in a temper.
“Don’t you dare say that again. We had a perfect marriage and Carl was the perfect husband. If there was a problem, it was her fault. And I know who it was now. I came tonight just to be sure. I was being fair, considering the others. But it was always her, always.” Emma was breathing as heavily as if she were running. She whirled and started walking again, and I was genuinely worried she might break down and collapse, so I trotted to keep up with her, my face stinging in the night breeze.
“Who, Emma? Tell me who it is you think did this.” I figured Kurt needed to know this. We might need to warn the woman or protect her in some way.
“I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t tell everyone. It was Sheri Tate.” Her hands clenched again.
“What? Sheri Tate has been so good to you. Why would you—?”
“She’s pretended to be good to me to cover her guilt. Can’t you see that? She came over that first night when Carl died. How did she know he was dead?” She turned her head to look at me, though she kept walking.
“Kurt called her and asked her to check on you,” I said, suppressing the urge to laugh at this.
But Emma wasn’t laughing. I don’t think she even heard me. She looked like she was wandering through some new world no one could see but herself. “She used that first night to search the whole house. She had the chance to hide whatever she wanted to. If those letters hadn’t been locked away, she would have found them, too.”
Could she hear herself? How crazy she sounded? She had swung from one paranoia to another. But she probably hadn’t been getting much sleep. She was stressed about her children. And she had to rethink her whole life, forward and backward. I wanted to feel sympathetic for her, but she was making it difficult.
“Emma, please. I know you’re grieving. Let me help you.” I wanted to put my arms around her and cry with her. But she hurried the last few steps up her own driveway and onto the porch. She opened her front door and slammed it behind her.
I walked back to the church, putting my hands on my face to feel the heat there. I was too embarrassed to go back inside the church building looking like I had just been in a fight, so I drove home, thinking furiously about what to do next.
Later that night, I called Sheri Tate. Emma needed help, and Sheri should know that as Relief Society president, but she also needed to know enough to protect herself. Gossip inside the Mormon church could move alarmingly fast, and it wasn’t easily forgotten.
Sheri’s voice was calm. “I already suspected something like that, based on the way she talked to me tonight. But thanks for the heads up.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Pray,” she said. “And I hope you pray, too. Pray for her, and pray for me.”
I tried, but I felt no resonant chime from the other end, no sense that the phone had been answered.
Chapter 26
Within two days, it was obvious to the whole ward what Emma’s crazy suspicions were. She began to spread rumors about Sheri Tate and her husband in every way she could. I was glad that Samuel seemed too busy packing up his whole room to pay attention to any of it. The Mormon church’s close-knit network of members showed its flaws now.
Emma had the contact information of every woman in the ward: cell phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses. I got a glimpse of the message she sent around, a rant about Sheri Tate’s “looseness,” along with several unflattering photographs that made it look as if she were about to undress.
One of them I recognized as a photograph that had been taken at our annual swim party at the Dimple Dell outdoor pool last August. Sheri had worn a modest suit that was a little old and too loose around the chest. The person with the camera had probably not intended to embarrass Sheri, but had put all of the photos online and sent a link around to ward members a couple of days afterward. In one “action shot” of Sheri, I rather liked the relaxed expression on her face, but the pose, with her breasts hanging half out of the suit, might be seen as provocative.
I didn’t know where the other photos had come from. One was of Sheri appearing to take off her shirt, though she might not have been. Another was of Sheri kissing a man whom I assumed was her brother, or perhaps a close male friend.
A second email came to me later, with a request for everyone who had been a “victim of this hussy’s machinations” to respond with their own complaints. I saw two additions from women in the ward who added fuel to the fire, one claiming that Sheri had spent an hour talking to one of the young men in the ward after expressing interest in hiring him for a lawn care job. The other said that Sheri had spent a long time staring at another woman’s husband at the church Christmas party last year.
There were a few voices on the other side, trying to defend Sheri, but they were outshouted by everyone outraged with her. When I had been in my atheist phase, I had attended several sessions of an atheist support group that met on Sundays. I had hoped
that it would fulfill my need to attend church meetings. One of the other atheists I had met claimed that the worst vices of humanity were given license in religion, and top on her list was “gossip that was sanctioned as a call to repentance.” I had thought about that critique on numerous occasions, never more so than now.
I forwarded everything I saw about Sheri to Kurt, though I wondered what in the world he could do about it. Then I tried to call Emma, but she wouldn’t answer the phone. Was she screening all her calls or just not answering me?
Verity deRyke called me before I had a chance to call Sheri. “Have you seen these photographs?” she asked.
I was a little surprised that at her age she was tracking emails so closely. “Yes, I’ve seen them.” I sighed heavily.
“This is terrible,” said Verity. “A woman in our ward. A Relief Society president.”
“They don’t mean anything,” I said, frustrated that Verity was on the side giving gossip credence.
“Then why do they look so raunchy?” she asked.
“You can make anything look raunchy if you frame even innocent actions the wrong way,” I said.
Verity sniffed. “I’m not sure I believe that’s true.”
“What do you think should be done, then?” I said, more impatiently than I intended.
“I think that Tom and Kurt need to get together to pray about whether Sheri Tate is worthy to continue in her calling.”
“And if she is?” I asked.
Verity said nothing for a long moment. “Well, then, I suppose we will have to forgive her.”
It was a kinder tone than many ward members had taken online, but it still infuriated me. Sheri had done nothing wrong!
“I’ll talk to Kurt,” I said, and hung up.
But first, I called Sheri. “I am so sorry about this, Sheri,” I began, so she wouldn’t have to wonder what page I was on.
“I’ve seen the emails,” she said. “People have been sending them to me under the guise of keeping me informed. I don’t really believe it’s out of kindness.”
I felt sick at her wounded tone. Sheri Tate was not easily hurt. “It’s a madness of some kind, but you must see that there are some people on your side, too.” That was the only excuse I could offer.
“This is the reward I get for being Relief Society president.” Her voice was clipped and angry. “After all the hours I have spent helping the women of this ward. I’ve had to stop all my other volunteer work. I quit my part-time job. And all because I thought that what I was doing with the women of the ward really mattered. The last three years of my life, I listened to them tell me their problems. I gave advice. I cleaned houses, wiped up vomit and poop and everything you can imagine. I answered the phone in the middle of the night to deal with emergencies. I held women who were weeping. I helped with every project imaginable. And this is the thanks they return to me.”
“You can’t look at it that way, Sheri,” I said.
“I am looking at it that way. I’m asking Kurt for a release, effective today. I need some time off, some time to recover. To see what I want to do next. See what I’m capable of doing next.”
Technically, Kurt couldn’t release her until Sunday. “It would be a terrible loss to the ward if you go,” I said. For all my problems with her tendency to take the strict view on everything, she had been the best, most conscientious, and most capable Relief Society president I had seen in all my years of church service.
Sheri let out a long breath. “As long as this rumor is circulating, I can’t do any good with the women in the ward anyway. They wouldn’t trust me in their homes or with their secrets.”
“Sheri, if you ask to be released now, you have to see how that will look.” It would look as if she were admitting that the rumors were true. And Emma Ashby’s worst side would triumph.
“I can’t think about how it will look. I have to think about practicalities. The ward needs someone who can actually do the job without all this back biting.”
“And what are you going to let Emma force you to do next? Move to another ward?” I asked. “Sell your house? Move out of state so that the rumors don’t follow you? You’ve got to deal with them now. You should send around your own email. Or call everyone in the ward and tell your own story.” Surely that would get her defenders to start speaking up more loudly.
“I’m too tired for that,” she said, and for the first time in my memory, she did sound tired. “And too disheartened. They’re all so eager to believe the worst of me. I feel like I’m living in a reality TV show.” I could hear the cracks in her voice now, the end of her strength.
We were supposed to help each other in Relief Society. We were supposed to prove that women could be friends, no matter what their differences. This had all gone so wrong.
“You have to fight back,” I said. But I wasn’t even sure that was the right thing to do. Weren’t we supposed to be turning the other cheek?
“Fight against Emma Ashby? How can I do that when she’s the one still suffering? She lost her husband. I can’t make her the villain in this.”
“That doesn’t excuse her,” I said.
“No, but I just can’t find it in my heart to push back at her. She’s lashing out because she’s hurting.”
I was silenced for a long moment by this graciousness despite all. Then I said, “You are the better woman here, Sheri.” I wanted her to know that I knew that, even if no one else did.
“Thank you for that, Linda,” she said, and hung up.
I called Kurt then and told him about my conversation with Sheri. He had already seen the emails. “Can you get President Frost involved? Or the Stake Relief Society Presidency?” I asked.
He sounded very sad and very tired. “I will contact them, Linda, but I don’t know what they can do, either. We can have a talk in our next stake conference on the subject of gossip, or even have one of our Sunday combined meetings about it.”
I knew as well as he did that the next stake conference wasn’t for three months. “If you wait until then, it will be too late. They will all think they have a right to pass this specific example of gossip along because they think it’s true, and they’re shaming her into repentance.”
Kurt was silent for a long moment. “Maybe I can do something before then if I get a few key people moving in the right direction. Peer pressure can be useful at times,” he said at last. “We use it all the time, to get boys to go on missions, to finish their Eagle Scout award, to marry in the temple. We get girls to be modest like their friends, to attend regular church meetings, to go to camp.”
And Sheri Tate was going to end up giving up her calling and retreating before any of that worked. Fine. Kurt had had his chance to act in the best interests of the ward. “I’m going to go talk to Emma,” I announced. “Right now.”
“Linda, please, don’t do that,” said Kurt.
“Why not? You’re not going to. Sheri isn’t going to.” And Emma was the only one who could really put an end to this.
“What good could possibly come out of it?”
“Well, it can hardly get any worse,” I said.
“I’m not so sure about that, Linda. If I come home right now, will you promise me you will wait until I get there? Then we can go over and talk to Emma together?”
“You promise we will go talk to her? You’ll tell her what you think of these baseless attacks of hers?”
“Linda, I will talk to her about what she’s done. I’m not going to argue with her, though. I’m not going to browbeat her either.”
At least he was offering to do something, and I had the feeling that he would get further with Emma than I would. She liked him. “Get home fast,” I said. “I don’t know if I can wait.”
We hung up, and then I walked out the door, deciding not to wait for him after all. I had my cell phone with me, but I turned it off and wa
lked faster and faster. It was mostly downhill to Emma’s, and I was in better shape than ever after a year of almost daily walks with Anna.
I knocked loudly on Emma Ashby’s door, buoyed by a sense of righteous indignation.
I could hear footsteps within, but the door remained closed. Emma was hiding inside her own house and I couldn’t allow that.
I put a hand on doorknob, and it turned. Emma hadn’t thought to lock it because she hadn’t thought anyone would just walk right into her house. We were all so used to leaving our doors unlocked because we trusted the other people in our neighborhood.
“Emma!” I called out.
I heard movement in the kitchen. Emma was standing next to the refrigerator, almost hugging it.
“I don’t want you here,” she said to me, her words imperious, but her tone much less so. “Please leave.”
“Sheri Tate hasn’t done anything wrong. What you did to her with those emails is reprehensible,” I said. My whole body was tensed.
Emma’s eyes were red rimmed and wide. “She deserved that and more. She took my husband from me. She is a murderer!” The words came at me with spittle.
I wiped at my face. “Sheri didn’t murder anyone,” I said. Emma seemed to have remade everything in her own imagination.
I moved closer to her and she stepped back defensively. “The police haven’t found anyone else. It has to be Sheri Tate,” she said.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, not sure I could reason with her at all. Was that why Kurt had wanted me to stay away? Because he realized Emma Ashby was unhinged and there was no point in talking to her anymore?
“She had so many meetings with Carl. And I saw the way she looked at him.” Emma nodded at her own words, adamant.
“Sheri is a good woman. She would never kill anyone,” I said. The only thing that could make a woman like Sheri kill, I thought to myself, would be a threat to her own children. I might kill if it came to that. But I considered that instinct a virtue of proper motherhood, not a flaw.
His Right Hand Page 19