I sat up too quickly, knocking my head on the upper bunk pretty hard. I rubbed at it and tried not to let the tears of pain well up.
“Are you all right? Should I get you some ice?” Rebecca asked.
“Just give me a minute,” I said, holding a finger up as I put my head to my knees. I counted to ten, like I told my boys to do when they were in pain. My head was still throbbing, but I didn’t feel quite the same need to curse.
“We always tried to get the boys out of these bunk beds by the time they were tall enough to start doing that,” said Rebecca with a gentle smile of memory. She sat down on the only chair in the room as I rose, ducking to avoid bumping my head again. It was uncomfortable leaning against the bunk, but there was nowhere else to sit. Well, it would keep me awake, anyway.
“I have a confession to make.” Rebecca looked around the room nervously, as if expecting someone to rush in on us.
“Go ahead.” I had been so sure at first that Rebecca wasn’t guilty. But maybe I’d been wrong again. It was strange that I felt so unthreatened, despite the fact that the door was closed and Rebecca had me here alone, in a quiet house after dark.
“I don’t want you to think worse of me than you already do. I’ve made mistakes in my life, but I’ve tried so hard to do what is right. But there are times when my weaker side just takes over.” She was digging her fingernails into her palms as if in punishment for her crimes.
“I believe you’ve tried to do right,” I said, offering her the kindest interpretation of her actions that I could think of.
Rebecca gave a sad laugh. “Tried being the operative word there, I suppose.”
I didn’t know if she was about to confess to murder—I certainly hoped not—but whatever it was she wanted to say, I was sure it would help my investigation and bring me some much-needed clarity. “Sometimes life is complicated,” I offered, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible.
She pushed her hair back and toyed with one of the knickknacks on the dresser. Finally, she said, “I love Sarah so much. Sometimes it frightens me how much. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to make me so angry with her foolish choices if I didn’t love her as I did. And wish more for her.” She leaned back against the chair, pensive.
The sisters’ relationship was still a mystery to me. Rebecca said she loved Sarah, but I knew now she had also betrayed her in terrible ways—at least, from Sarah’s perspective. Was Stephen’s mistreatment of Sarah enough of a reason for Rebecca to kill him? My mind was struggling to make sense of everything I had discovered so far—all the hints and half-truths. What if the sisters had plotted together? Sarah had convinced me of her innocence back in the shed, and I’d been so sure of Rebecca’s innocence this whole time. But maybe they had both tricked me. Cautiously, I said, “I think the more we love someone, the more difficult it can be to do what is best for them.”
Rebecca twitched briefly. Then she said, “Yes.”
There was a long silence. I felt like screaming my frustration. Last night had ended with Kurt and me fighting and him driving off and leaving me here. Then I’d woken up to a dead body, and I’d been going nonstop since then. I was exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Why wouldn’t she just tell me what had really happened? Then I could go home and clean my hands of this whole thing.
When Rebecca finally spoke, her voice was so low it was almost inaudible and I spent a moment putting the sounds all together.
“I was the one who ruined Sarah’s paintings,” Rebecca said.
“What? Why?” This was not the confession I had expected. I stood up and paced. I was so sick of all the secrets that were hidden here, coming out one by one, each one darker than the last. Did everyone have secrets like this that came out eventually, even if there wasn’t a murder in their midst?
Rebecca looked at the floor. “She woke me up that night, the night before Stephen was—killed. She was in a rage because she said that she was being wasted here, that it was all my fault. The same things she always says, but it was the last straw for me, I guess. She demanded that I get her money so she could take real lessons and buy more canvases. She said she wasn’t going to end up like me, a dried-up old woman who had nothing in her life but memories of her children, who had left her.”
I stopped, silent, sure this was the moment that the rest of the confession I’d been expecting would finally come out. If Rebecca could have taken a kitchen knife and been that vicious to those paintings, how much more would it have taken for her to use the knife on Stephen? Maybe she had been in the kind of rage that knows no bounds.
Rebecca continued, “I waited until she went to bed and then I rummaged in Stephen’s drawers until I found the shed key. I let myself in, and used one of the knives that was already in there. It felt so good, tearing and ripping at those things she had made that I never would.”
I was stunned. This didn’t sound like the Rebecca I thought I knew, the loving mother who cared for everyone on the compound. “But why? Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. She just loves her paintings so much. More than anyone—anything, I mean—and . . . ” Rebecca hesitated and looked at me, her eyes pleading. I wondered what my expression must be. It couldn’t have been particularly sympathetic. I’d seen Sarah’s talent and how much those paintings meant to her. Destroying them was truly cruel and it shocked me that Rebecca was capable of that. “Maybe I always thought it was unfair that she was so gifted and I wasn’t,” Rebecca finished quickly.
I didn’t know what to say. Why was she telling me about this at all? Did Rebecca want me to offer her some kind of absolution? It wasn’t really a Mormon theological concept. Besides, I wasn’t the one she needed to confess to, but I could see why she wasn’t eager to tell Sarah.
Then Rebecca said, “I should let you go to sleep now,” and waved me back to bed.
“Wait!” I said, and called her back.
She turned, eyes clouded with grief and guilt.
“You really didn’t come here to tell me you killed Stephen?” I asked.
“What? No.” Her expression fluttered from shock to hurt. “No, I told you from the beginning, I didn’t kill him. Why would I ask you to stay to find out the truth if I’d done it myself?”
“Maybe because you were trying to point me in the wrong direction. Keep me busy as long as you could and make sure Kenneth and I were implicated in the cover up so we wouldn’t call the police when we found out the truth.” Which was why she’d felt free to tell me tonight. Except that she hadn’t told me that at all.
“No. I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t even the same knife that I used, though I checked to make sure. I don’t know why I did that,” she said dully.
Did I believe her still or not? In any case, I didn’t stop her from leaving, and narrowly avoided beaning myself on the upper bunk again as I climbed back in. I wasn’t ready to leave, though I wasn’t sure any more if that was about finding out who was the murderer or about not wanting to go home to Kurt as embarrassed as I felt right now. I hadn’t realized how compromised my point of view had become since my arrival here. I had been so sympathetic to Rebecca from the beginning. Naomi wanted me to come because she thought she was too close to the inside to see objectively, but wasn’t I now in the same place?
I finally went to sleep and dreamed of paintings burning. I didn’t think it was anything like Joanna’s apparently very real prophetic gift, but when I woke in the middle of the night, I wished desperately Kurt were there to curl around me and assure me that it had only been a dream. I’d go home tomorrow, I promised myself. And then I’d say whatever needed to be said to Kurt to make things right again.
But I was destined not to get much sleep that night—again. In the wee hours, I jerked awake to the sound of the bedroom door opening again, and my name being called.
It was Naomi, who was carrying a large black bag. She was
white-lipped with tension.
“I need your help,” she said. “Carolyn’s gone into labor and she won’t go to the hospital.”
“Isn’t she early?” I tried to think what day it was. Wednesday?
“Yes, eight weeks early.” Naomi’s voice was strained—and maybe even a little afraid.
“You’re going to deliver her at home?” In Utah it was still legal to deliver at home. Whether it was sane to do so was another question.
“If you’ll help me,” she said. She waited for me to get up, which I did, throwing on a robe over my nightgown. Then she motioned for me to follow her to the stairs and out the back door.
She explained further as we crossed the yard. “Dad usually delivered the wives at home because he had all the equipment here. And last time Carolyn went to the hospital, it turned out badly for her. She seems to think that it was because she wasn’t faithful enough.”
“I don’t have any training,” I said nervously.
“You’re sensible and steady,” said Naomi, her face unclear in the dim light of the morning. “That’s what I need. I helped my father deliver enough times that I think unless there’s something drastically wrong, it should be fine.”
It sunk in now that she could have asked her mother or any of the other wives to help, but she hadn’t. She’d asked me. I felt touched at the gesture, and a little nervous about making sure she didn’t end up regretting her choice.
“Why wouldn’t your father just deliver all his wives at the hospital? Wouldn’t that make more sense, when he already had privileges there? It would have just been routine.”
Naomi shook her head, looking at the ground instead of at me, minding her step over the uneven soil. “He always said that the pioneers delivered their babies at home and that was good enough for them. If there was a problem, he’d go in, but that only happened a couple of times.”
Control again, I thought. He wanted even more control than he’d have in a hospital. It was more than a little frightening.
“What about Dr. Benallie? Would she be willing to come and help?” I asked as we moved across the yard, Naomi moving with the confidence that came from growing up here and me struggling to follow on the uneven ground. I checked my watch and saw it was just past 4 a.m., and there was a bit of light behind the mountains, signaling an early summer dawn.
“Dr. Benallie?” Naomi said, and shook her head with a short laugh. “No.”
“But she came when—” I didn’t finish.
“She’s on probation at the hospital. Part of a settlement for a malpractice suit.”
So maybe her medical license was already in jeopardy and it hadn’t felt like as much of a risk to falsify the death certificate for Stephen?
“We’ll have to check if she’s bleeding,” Naomi said as we reached the steps of Carolyn’s small house. “If she has a placental separation, I can’t help her here. She needs a hospital, and I’ll insist she goes there.”
I’d had nightmares about hospitals after Georgia’s birth, but I couldn’t imagine taking the risk of delivering at home after that. I’d wanted even more medical intervention, not less.
“Linda, are you with me?” asked Naomi at the door of the house.
“I’m with you,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with certainty I did not feel. I did not understand the women here, though I kept trying to.
Naomi opened the door and because it was the one thing I’d always relied on in uncertainty, I whispered a prayer:
Heavenly Father, please let Carolyn and the baby live. She has suffered too much already. Everyone here has.
My lips felt numb and I had none of my normal sense of confirmation that God had heard the prayer.
Heavenly Mother, I said in my mind, redirecting my prayer to the half of the godhead I thought might listen to me more right now, even if it was highly unorthodox. You know what it’s like to give birth. You know how a mother feels about an unborn child. Please, give us all the strength to make it through this day, whatever it brings. Let us bring solace and joy to each other as women. Amen.
It wasn’t the prayer I’d intended to say, but it was the one that had come to me. I felt comfort, but also a sense of foreboding. I thought of Joanna, who thought she could see the future. I wondered what warnings she’d be giving me right now if she were here.
Chapter 26
Without knocking, Naomi opened the bedroom door and we saw Carolyn leaning over the bed. Naomi looked at me and I could see the fear in her eyes immediately. As for Carolyn, her face was gray, and there was a pool of fluid on the carpet beneath her. I saw the pink-tinged smear staining her temple garments, which she still wore despite the circumstances. How she had gotten them as a polygamist, however sympathetic her bishop was, I could only guess at. You were supposed to have a temple recommend to purchase them from the Distribution Center and these didn’t seem homemade to me.
It was stupid for me to focus on such things, but it was the only way I could manage to not start crying immediately as I felt a wave of emotion flood my senses. Childbirth should be a holy time, but to me, it was always a time of sorrow combined with terror at my own lack of power over the universe.
Naomi crouched next to Carolyn, trying to help her pant through the next contraction.
After all my attempts to steel myself, my knees buckled and I ended up leaning on the bed next to Carolyn. But Carolyn deserved my help, and by God, I was going to give it to her as much as I could manage. If I had no strength to stand, at least I could find the strength to speak.
So I looked into Carolyn’s brown eyes, took her hand in mine, and said, “You are strong, Carolyn. You can do this.”
Carolyn took a deep breath as the contraction subsided. “It’s too early,” she whispered to Naomi, who was palpating the outside of Carolyn’s unmoving abdomen. “I’m not due for eight more weeks. Will the baby be all right?”
I could see Naomi hesitate, then make the decision. She met Carolyn’s eyes squarely, pasted a reassuring smile on her face and said, “Yes, everything’s fine. The baby’s fine for now. You just need to concentrate on getting through the contractions.”
“You’re sure?” Carolyn said.
“Of course I’m sure.” Naomi reached over and rubbed Carolyn’s back.
Carolyn looked at me for confirmation and I didn’t know what to say. My mouth went dry and I thought about the doctor in that horrible hospital room telling me rather bluntly that my baby had already died. I had been in pain from labor and couldn’t help thinking that maybe he could have let me hope for just a few hours longer, to get through the delivery. But I didn’t really know for sure that there was no hope here, as there had been none for me. Just because Naomi was worried didn’t mean the baby was dead, did it?
“Everything will be all right,” I told her, my voice wobbling as I spoke.
After that, Naomi helped Carolyn back onto the bed.
“I’ve always labored leaning over the bed like that before,” Carolyn murmured.
“Well, we don’t want to speed things up at the moment,” Naomi said, and I had no idea if this was the truth or not. “The baby is early and your body isn’t quite prepared.”
Another contraction came and went as Carolyn tried to pant through it. “It’s coming soon no matter what position I’m in, I think,” she said.
Naomi pulled off Carolyn’s temple garment bottoms, though Carolyn reached for them and folded them under one arm. I wasn’t sure why she thought she should keep them close to her. Did she think that would somehow protect her? Some Mormons cling to the idea that garments offered physical protection against harm, not just spiritual protection. In this case, I had no interest in taking any comfort away from Carolyn. She deserved everything she could hold onto.
Naomi opened the black bag that must have been Stephen’s and set out a tray by the bed, including a scalpel, a pair of
medical scissors to cut the umbilical cord, and a clamp for the stump. She’d been away at school for years now—how long had it been since she had done a live delivery with her father?
I stayed beside Carolyn, trying to focus her on her breathing.
“The children?” she whispered hoarsely, when another contraction was over.
“They’re still asleep for now,” Naomi said, “but I woke up Esther to come over and help as soon as she could dress. She should be here before anyone wakes.”
And as she spoke, I heard the doors open downstairs and the sound of footsteps going into the kitchen beneath us.
Then there was another contraction to draw my attention back. It was a long one and Carolyn held my hand the whole time, pressing it to the point that it was almost all pins and needles. Good. If that helped her, it didn’t matter what it did to me.
“I feel like I’m almost ready to push,” Carolyn said, when she was done.
I helped move her hair out of her face, which was wet with sweat, and wiped her forehead with a towel by the side of the bed.
“I need to see how far you’re dilated,” Naomi said, and moved around to the bottom of the bed. “I’m putting my hand inside of you. I hope it’s not too cold. Just relax,” she said, trying to talk the other woman through each step.
She would be a good OB/GYN, I thought. I always appreciated the ones who talked me through what they were doing, instead of the ones who just took it for granted that I knew what was going on—or that I didn’t want to know.
“The baby’s things—are—in—nursery—one door down—left,” Carolyn gasped out, reaching for me. “Will you go get them?”
I glanced at Naomi, whose bleak eyes held mine for a moment, and then she nodded. I knew then that she had already diagnosed a stillbirth was coming. I had felt it in my heart before, and now I had confirmation in my mind. That was how the scriptures said you knew the truth, if it was in heart and mind.
For Time and All Eternities Page 21