“I can help,” I offered impulsively, and it was the first time I’d felt the energy to help someone else since the fire. “If you need someone to care for Talitha. She’s a great kid and I’d be happy to watch her for you on a regular basis, if you need me.”
Naomi’s face brightened and she seemed younger, or at least less weighed down. “Really?”
I nodded heartily.
She grabbed my hand enthusiastically. “Thank you so much! I’ve been worrying over how I can juggle all these things.”
“You know, being a mother doesn’t mean you can’t rely on other people for help. It’s not necessarily a sacrifice for other people to be involved in your family,” I said. It could be a gift to someone like me, who was still looking for ways to be a mother.
“Can I call you Mom?” Naomi choked a bit.
It felt so good to fold her into my arms and feel like I was widening the circle of my family yet again. I should have told her to call me Mom long before now.
“I’d be honored,” I said.
She pulled back so she could look at me directly. “I’d heard people say that when you marry, you marry the whole family. That used to frighten me. I worried as much about anyone needing to fall in love with my family as I did about falling in love with someone else’s family. And I worried that my love had already been stretched to the limit with so many siblings, so many mothers. Maybe there was no more space in my heart for anyone else.”
“But it isn’t like that, is it?” I said.
Naomi wiped at her eyes. “No,” she said, “it isn’t.”
Chapter 35
As a Mormon bishop, Kurt was authorized to officiate at weddings anywhere, not just in our home chapel. He had never done it for a couple that wasn’t Mormon before, but there was no reason why he couldn’t (so long as it wasn’t a same-sex marriage, according to the new policy’s rules). Kenneth and Naomi asked him to officiate in the Draper City Park on the 26th of August, 2016. We didn’t want to have to try to squeeze both of our large families into a restaurant, so I had reserved several pavilions for the catering service to deliver the wedding banquet to us there.
It was painful to let someone else do all the cooking, but Kurt had insisted, and he was right that I simply couldn’t have managed everything on my own this time. I’d tried before, with Adam and Marie’s wedding, and with Joseph and Willow’s, but in both of those cases, I’d had months and months in advance to plan and cook and put things in freezers to prepare. And I had been younger then. And not just out of the hospital and dealing with a lot of emotional baggage.
Dawn was bright and early on the day of the wedding, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. There was no inversion clouding the skies and making it difficult to breathe either, which felt like a blessing from God. I spent a moment staring down into the valley from my bedroom window and thought how different Utah in the summer was from Utah in the winter. The glint of light off the lake brightened everything, and the sky stretched from the Wasatch Mountains in the east to the smaller Oquirrh Range in the west, creating a safe space that the pioneers had needed when they arrived, battered from mobs in Nauvoo. I needed this space, too.
Kurt and I dressed in our wedding clothes, me in a rose-colored, flowing mother-of-the-groom gown and him in a matching tie with his black suit and the rainbow ribbon he had started to wear with his suit every week to church. Except for a couple of teenagers throwing a Frisbee around, we of the wedding party were the only people at the park that morning.
Naomi had chosen a vibrant pink bridal gown that fell to just below her knees. Her blonde hair was down, and it blew in the light breeze. She wore sandals of a natural leather color with no heels. Kenneth wore a beige linen suit. I stared at him when I first saw him, surprised at how good he looked. With a slightly rumpled white shirt underneath, my son looked at ease despite the formal wear. His deep tan was set off by the lighter colors, and there was a faint scar on his cheek that I knew had come from the fire.
Talitha wore a paler shade of pink than Naomi did, and braided into her hair was a crown of real daisies. I didn’t know whether Naomi had managed that herself or knew someone who was a fabulous hair stylist. Like the child she was, Talitha giggled as she ran around in the park, diving into the grass. I was pretty sure there would be green stains on her dress, but Naomi didn’t scold her. Whatever Talitha’s scars were from her father’s death, her mother’s abuse, and her childhood in polygamy, none of them seemed apparent today.
My sons Adam, Joseph, and Zachary had gotten here early enough to help set up chairs. I think they had tried to make the two sides look even by spreading out the chairs on our side, but it wasn’t possible, considering how many people were on Naomi’s side. I hadn’t invited my extended family and Kurt’s parents and brother were dead. That meant twenty chairs versus fifty, all in rows.
I thought of Samuel, and missed him deeply. Kurt and I hadn’t bothered to ask the Boston area mission president if Samuel could come home for the wedding since it was so unlikely that it would be approved. For a funeral, perhaps, but a wedding, no. I’d written him a redacted version of the events at the Stephen Carter compound so he wouldn’t feel left out. He probably understood me well enough to know how much I’d left unsaid, but we could talk about the details after his mission, if he wanted them.
Kenneth introduced me to some of his friends, one of his college roommates, and several of the people who worked at his coin laundry business with him. Naomi introduced me to a couple of classmates she’d invited, as well.
To my surprise, Anna Torstensen was seated in the back, as well. She smiled at me and I could see the strain in her face. Kurt must have told her about the wedding and made sure she was invited. He’d taken a risk, but I was glad to see her there. I went over to help her find a seat. She leaned close to me and hugged me for a long time without saying a word.
Emotions rode over me one after another: fury, desolation, loneliness, loss, fear, and then a more lasting wave of love.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said.
I opened my mouth twice to say something, and nothing came out.
“I miss our walks,” she said at last.
“I do, too.” That was a beginning, at least.
“Maybe you could come over for tea next week? I have some new recipes I could share with you,” she offered.
“That sounds nice.” It did. Tea was just what I needed. I didn’t know what we would talk about, but we would figure it out as we went.
“I want you to know that I’ve never judged you through this. I hope you haven’t judged me.”
I had judged her. Maybe unfairly. I let out a long breath, and let go of—something. “I love you, Anna,” I said. Wasn’t that enough? Wasn’t it more than enough?
I got up after that, wiping at my wet face, glad I hadn’t bothered with makeup since I suspected today would be a day for crying anyway. I moved away from Anna and our side of the chairs, then maneuvered my way to the front and caught Rebecca’s eye.
She nodded to me and I thought that she looked much the same as she had before, an older woman with too much responsibility on her back and too many regrets haunting her dreams. On the other hand, several rows back, Carolyn looked much better than the last time I had seen her, without the shadows under her eyes and the physical strain of pregnancy and loss. I didn’t know how much truth about the “stillborn” daughter had come out when Dr. Benallie had been questioned by the police about Stephen’s murder, but I hoped Carolyn had been strong enough to deal with what had.
The children on Naomi’s side of the family were dressed in sober church clothes with pink roses pinned on their shirts that I suspected had come from the Perezes’ garden. I was surprised at how quiet and well-behaved they were, and then a little disturbed by it. They’d been trained to obey too well. I h
oped they didn’t think of this ceremony as anything like the too-recent funeral they’d been to for their father.
I sat down on our side in the front, with an up-front view of Kurt as officiator, and Kenneth at his side. I felt a moment of peace, and more than that, sheer joy and satisfaction. There are few enough moments in life like this, where you feel that everything you’ve done has been worth it, that you’ve received more than you ever deserved. It might not last, but I was going to hold that sense close to my heart. I was a mother, and this was a mother’s reward.
The music began, a single violin playing a Csárdás. I didn’t recognize the violinist, and he was so talented that I wondered if it was someone Kenneth or Naomi knew personally or if they’d hired him. With the music playing and everyone standing and turned to watch her, Naomi walked down the aisle. Talitha walked just in front of her, throwing rose petals with abandon.
This was very little like a temple wedding, where everyone would have been dressed in white and the couple kneeling across an altar with mirrors indicating eternity behind them each. But there was something sacred about this moment, even so.
When Naomi reached Kenneth, she touched his hand, and then let go so that Talitha could squeeze between them. Kurt looked a bit disconcerted, but after a moment he began his lecture on marriage before the official ceremony. He had tailored this one specifically to Kenneth and Naomi, throwing out all of his old set pieces about eternal life and the temple. He had asked me to look over his paragraphs in their early stages to be sure he was on the right track, but I hadn’t seen it all together. Tears came to me again as he began.
“Marriage is our refuge within the storm of life. Marriage to the right person brings us peace when peace seems impossible. Marriage makes us grow when we want to stay the same. Marriage teaches us what love is—and what love isn’t.
“Marriage is the reason we want to stay in bed some days, and the reason we get up other days. Marriage is the best of us and the worst of us, and we make an offering of those together to our beloved. And we accept their offering in return, and vow to be more ourselves than we have ever been before.”
I hoped that this was still true of our marriage, too.
Kurt turned and spoke directly to Kenneth. “Son, you and I have had our differences. But here we are together. My marriage to your mother is part of what has bound us and will always bind us. But now you are binding yourself to another. And so I must say goodbye to my son, and welcome the man he is becoming. You are no longer mine to care for and advise, but you will always be part of my heart.
“You are the head of your own marriage now. You must ask the questions, and figure out the answers. You must find a way to love as deeply as you are capable—to be as kind and gentle and as understanding as you can. Remember how blessed this day is, and that each day is as blessed as this day, if you make it so—for her and for you.”
It was a patriarchal way to perceive marriage, but I hoped that Kenneth would receive it in the spirit in which Kurt intended it.
Kurt turned to Naomi. “First of all, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see Kenneth married off safely, so thank you.”
That got a laugh out of the crowd.
“I know Kenneth very well. Better than you do, in some ways, but certainly not in every way. And as each year passes, you will know him better and I will know him less well. And that’s as it should be. But remember this: his flaws are mine. I did my best to teach him, but I could only teach what I knew. The lessons you teach him, he will have to teach me in turn. And believe me, my wife will be glad about that.”
More chuckles at that. This wasn’t the kind of wedding Kurt would normally have done in a chapel. I liked the more casual, self-deprecating, funnier version of Kurt officiating here.
“All I can say now is, good luck! Kenneth loves you, which shows he got some good sense from me, at least. You love him, which shows—I don’t know what.” This got another laugh from the crowd. “There will be days when he may seem angry at you, but you should know it isn’t you he’s shouting at. It’s himself. Don’t let him get away with it. Tell him that you love him and remind him that marriage makes you one so he never has to be afraid of being alone again,” Kurt continued, his expression earnest once more.
Never alone again. Yes, though I had been pushing Kurt away for months, I had never really been alone. And that was a good thing. I was weeping with joy for my son and new daughter-in-law, but also for me and for Kurt and for the enduring power of our marriage.
Then Kenneth and Naomi had their own vows to share.
“I will love you and cherish you until I die,” Naomi said solemnly and simply, and she put the ring on Kenneth’s finger.
“You are my one and only,” Kenneth said, putting the ring on Naomi’s finger.
After these simple words, Kurt pronounced them husband and wife, and that was it. We all clapped and stood for them as they walked back down the aisle and over to the gazebo that was waiting for them to greet their guests.
I went and took Kurt’s arm. “Good work,” I said, as I watched the catering truck pull into the parking lot nearby.
“It didn’t feel like it was right until the moment I stood up there and started. I was sure I was going to offend everyone and end up with no one left in their chairs at all. Not even you,” Kurt said.
“Well, you said exactly the right things. You made Kenneth and Naomi feel both loved and welcomed.” And no pressure to return to Mormonism, which I knew was quite difficult for him.
“Thank you,” Kurt said with emotion in his voice. After a moment, he added, “Although, you know, I can’t say I really take credit for all of it. Mostly, I just let myself say what I thought you would say if you were marrying them.”
“Ah,” I said, smiling. “Well, no wonder it turned out so well, then.”
There was a moment of his hand on mine when I felt that we were one, as Kurt had said marriage could make you. Maybe it wasn’t meant to last for more than a moment or two, so that it was always something you held close, and tried to get back to.
“Talitha is going to be quite a handful in a few years,” Kurt said, after he wiped the tears from his own face.
She was now plucking flowers out of the pots and throwing excess petals at her cousins and younger siblings.
“She’s a handful now,” I said.
And she was going to be our handful for the next week, as Kenneth and Naomi went on their honeymoon. I was looking forward to every minute of that time with her, time to be a mother again.
Maybe it was what I needed to heal, to find myself again. If loving service was the heart of Mormonism, maybe I just needed to get back to that and forget all the rest.
The food arrived at the tables set up on the grass, and I sat next to Anna as we ate and she commented on what she thought she or I would have done better ourselves. I danced with Kenneth, and Kurt took the traditional father-daughter dance with Naomi. We ate good food, toasted with soda, juice, and no alcohol as per the negotiation between Kenneth and Kurt.
For a few sacred hours, I felt as much a part of an eternal family in that park with my sons around me, my baby granddaughter and my adoptive granddaughter-to-be, my daughters-in-law, and my best friend as I ever had. Heaven might be better than this, but I couldn’t imagine it if it was.
Author’s Note
When I began writing this book about dealing with the effects of Mormon polygamy in the modern era, I knew very little of the historical facts that I discovered in the course of my research. Though the church insists that polygamy ended in 1890, I found that it persisted into the twentieth century, a fact that the official documents of the church obscured for most of my adult life.
Over the course of writing this book, I also sought out polygamists who consider themselves part of the larger Mormon community and began to listen to their stories. Some are FLDS, and their stories were often
heartbreaking. Some have left; others continue within the community for various reasons. Then there were other groups, the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB), the True and Living Church (TLC), and Centennial Park groups. The neglect of children, the abuse of women, the lack of education—these are all real problems, not to mention the emotional scars that come from a controlling community.
I’ve read exposés about the sex lives of the men involved in these unions, but have also heard from those who truly consider polygamy to be a holy practice and who claim they are not involved in abusive relationships (yes, I am also skeptical of this, but I have tried to let people speak for themselves and not impose my own judgments on them). I also spent time watching Escaping Polygamy on A&E, which is about the Kingston clan, and which is just as horrible as Stephen Carter’s independent polygamous group, though perhaps wealthier and more complicated.
And then there are the independent polygamists whose experiences I used to build Stephen’s purported conversion to polygamy, which he shares with Rebecca. If you listened to these people speak, you might feel, as I did, torn by your assumptions about abuse and control and the clear-eyed, open-hearted people in front of you. I try hard not to judge others in the practice of their religion. Polygamists who eschew child marriage are, at least, avoiding the worst aspects, as are those who make sure that wives and children are well educated.
Of course, I am writing mystery novels and when there is a crime like murder, there have to be multiple motives and multiple possible suspects, so in each draft my Stephen became more and more a villain. I do not mean in writing this novel to indict all polygamists everywhere. Perhaps there are some who could come to a more egalitarian polygamy, though I’m not sure what it would look like in the end. While Stephen Carter’s polygamous ideas are loosely based on the claims made by the original leaders of the FLDS church and some of its offshoots, he is his own prophet, as his brother is. This seems to be fairly typical of fundamentalist religions in my study of the history of Mormon Fundamentalists, each group claiming the “true authority” of previous leaders, and pointing the finger at others who have gone astray, even as the mainstream LDS church thinks of all of them as apostates and reprobates.
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