Joseph John walked by and gave me a sweet, sympathetic look. Then Cliff’s words echoed in my head: There’s a whole big world out there.
Cliff was right. There was indeed a whole big world out there and soon Joseph John would be living in it, facing temptation at every turn. I knew I had to tell him as soon as possible about my cycle. I had to get my marriage sealed and settled. I knew I could not bear the anxiety of wondering who Joseph John might be meeting at BYU while I was stuck here in Pineridge, baking bread.
I had just settled into my seat in the schoolroom when Sister Emily doused the pile of books with gasoline and tossed a lit match onto it. As the flames crackled and rose, the acrid smoke wafted through the open window, stinging my eyes. I put my forehead against the cool, worn wood of my desk. Somehow this day was going from bad to worse and I couldn’t name why.
I hurried home, long after school had ended, the sewing patterns for Brenda Norton still in my bag. There had been no time to drop them off. Sister Emily had made me stay after school to wash down all the desks and chalkboards. It was my punishment for having fallen asleep while she read from volume eighteen of the Journal of Discourses, reciting the speeches of the early Mormon leaders.
As I ran up the front porch I heard my mother’s voice. “Cliff is just acting like a boy, Emily. They all go through that rebellious phase. There’s no need to make it more than it is.”
“He has been stirring up the other students, asking questions he shouldn’t be, and challenging authority,” Sister Emily snapped back. Just as I feared, Sister Emily had come home with word of Cliff’s behavior and now Daddy would hear of it.
I came into the kitchen to find my mother and the other sister wives at work canning the summer vegetables from the garden. “Why are you late, Alva Jane?” Sister Cora asked. “You weren’t visiting with that Joseph John Hilliard, were you?”
I felt my face turn hot with embarrassment. “Of course not, Sister Cora. I hardly ever see him; he goes to the public school. Sister Emily asked me to stay late to clean up the schoolroom.”
“Good. Nothing good can come of young girls fraternizing with boys. You’ve heard it from the prophet a hundred times: Boys are snakes; they are not to be trusted. All they want is to take your virtue. They will not lead you to be exalted in the eyes of the Lord, but cast down.”
“Amen,” agreed Sister Emily.
I nodded, anxious to get off this subject. “You said you had some special chores for me today, Sister Cora?”
“Yes, I want you to go to my brother Wade’s house and help take care of Sister Ann Marie. She is recovering from the discipline last night, and although her sprit is undoubtedly strengthened, her body is in need of healing.”
To Wade Barton’s house? To help take care of Sister Ann Marie, whose image haunted me all night?
That was the last place I wanted to go. I looked to my mother, hoping she would insist that I had chores to do at home or in the yard, anyplace besides Wade Barton’s house. But Mama was busy with the canning, her face damp from the steam rising from boiling the canning jars. She did not look up and I knew she would not take my part in this or go against Sister Cora when Cliff was causing problems. This was part of the constant shift and struggle for influence that infused our family life, the jockeying for position among the sister wives. If a child was disobedient or causing trouble, it was a reflection of the mother’s failings; her status and her power were diminished. My mother could not rescue me. I had no choice but to agree to Sister Cora’s request.
“Of course, Sister Cora. Once I change to my work dress I’ll be ready to go.”
I headed for the stairs and heard Sister Cora’s voice behind me. “That’s a good girl, Alva Jane. You keep sweet like that and you’ll make a fine wife to a lucky man.”
Keep sweet. Those were the words that all of us girls lived by in Pineridge. They were cross-stitched onto the pillow Mama gave me for my last birthday, and they hung above the kitchen doorway as a framed embroidery sampler. Keep sweet reminds us that obedience with a willing and happy heart is our main requirement before God. And I would keep sweet, no matter what I had to face. I would do what God required of me and I would be rewarded with a celestial marriage for all eternity to the boy I loved.
I felt a stab of cramping as I reached into the strongbox stowed under Leigh Ann’s bed. I grabbed two more sanitary pads and was tucking them into the folds of my dress when I heard Leigh Ann giggle behind me.
“I knew it!” she said, kneeling next to me. “I keep count of how many pads I have and I knew two went missing! When did you get it?”
“Just last night, but I haven’t told anyone yet. Please keep quiet about it, Leigh Ann. There’s been so much going on with Cliff. I want to wait until the right time to tell Mama.”
“Sure. It can just be our secret. You know what this means, don’t you? They’re going to be finding husbands for us soon!”
I smiled, keeping my plans with Joseph John to myself. “I’ve got to go. Sister Cora is sending me over to Wade Barton’s house to take care of Sister Ann Marie.”
“Let me know if you want some female tea when you get back. I know how to make it; my mama showed me last month,” Leigh Ann offered.
“Thanks, and keep it a secret, promise?”
“Promise.”
We linked our pinkie fingers and tugged.
I walked slowly toward Wade Barton’s house. I hoped to meet Joseph John returning from school or chores. I had to find a moment to tell him that we could finally ask for permission to be married. But he was nowhere to be seen.
I arrived at Brother Wade’s house. Its wood and white paint had suffered beneath the harsh desert sun, unlike the prophet’s limestone compound, which stood like a fortress against the elements. I knocked on the door, trying to keep my mind steady, fighting off the fear I felt.
What condition will Sister Ann Marie be in after yesterday’s events? Why can’t her other sister wives take care of her, as is their duty?
Sister LeNan, Brother Wade’s fifth wife, opened the door. She had left school at thirteen to prepare for marriage to the prophet’s brother. Sister LeNan had to be eighteen now and her belly was swollen with her third child. She stepped aside to welcome me in.
“Oh, hi there, Alva Jane. It’s so nice to see you again. Sister Cora told Wade that you’d be coming over to help with Ann Marie.” She had the same singsong voice I remembered from when we were in school together.
I followed her into the living room. All the curtains were drawn against the heat. The floors gleamed; there was not a speck of dust anywhere. Framed images of all the prophets throughout history hung on the walls, staring at us in mute judgment. Everything was in its place but there was a stillness to it that made me uncomfortable. It was so different from my own house, which bustled with kids and the bickering among the sister wives. Here, the silence hung like a veil.
“Are your sister wives out?” I asked.
“Oh, no. They’re here, working. Our husband likes quiet, all the time. Says he doesn’t like the chattering of women and children, like a bunch of magpies!”
“Where are the children?”
“The big boys are out back, the girls are helping us with the chores, and the smallest are in the attic. They can play up there without making much noise.”
We stood, looking at each other, unsure of what to say next.
“When is your baby due?” I finally asked.
“Oh, in a few weeks, but Lord, I feel so swollen I’d swear it will be any day now! I’m just so big and I feel so tired all the time it’s hard to do my daily chores. Sister Irene has us on a tight schedule around here. Mondays we clean the bedrooms and linens, wash the walls and all the upstairs windows. Tuesdays we do the floors, scrubbing and waxing. Wednesdays it’s kitchen top to bottom, disinfecting everything. Sister Irene, Wade’s first wife, is very tough on germs.… ” Sister LeNan rattled on, while I nodded.
“That’s a lot of work to do. But you
only have one month to go until the baby comes,” I said.
“I know, it’s not long. My last one, Charlene, was five weeks early. I sure wish this one would come early too! But what I’m really hoping for is a Down’s baby,” Sister LeNan whispered with a giggle.
I had heard of other women hoping for a child with Down’s syndrome or some other problem. Most sister wives depend on government help and food stamps to feed their children, and having a Down’s baby means more aid. A handicapped child is a blessing and gift from God for this reason. Before I could say anything, I heard Wade Barton’s heavy step on the floorboards and turned to see him standing in the doorway.
Up close his body seemed even bigger and thicker than I remembered from the previous night. His neck joined his sloping shoulders as one bulky mass of muscle; his forehead was low and jutted out, giving him the look of an angry animal. He stared at me for a long moment and I was so nervous I didn’t dare speak or know where to put my hands.
“Welcome to our home, Alva Jane. My sister suggested that you come to help my wife Ann Marie. Said you are very good with healing,” he said finally.
“Thank you for having me, Mr. Barton. Anything I can do to help …” My voice sounded so small that I thought better of it and just fell quiet.
“Follow me.” He turned toward the kitchen.
We walked to a steep staircase at the back of the kitchen and down to the basement, which had been converted into a windowless room. There I saw Sister Ann Marie, propped up on a pile of pillows in a bed covered with a faded patchwork quilt. Her face was bruised and misshapen, the right side of it immobile from the swelling. One of her eyes was covered with an oozing bandage. She wore a loose nightgown and I could see raised red marks on her neck. She didn’t look at me, keeping her one eye trained on her husband where he stood at the side of the bed.
“I had to take her in to the doctor in town this morning, had to wire that jaw shut. She can’t talk much and she can only drink through a straw but she’s quiet. She needs to have those bandages changed and to be given liquids; that’s what the doctor said.”
I wondered if the doctor in town had been at all curious about the cause of the injuries. As if he could read my mind, Brother Wade said, “He’s good FLDS, he didn’t ask any questions. I told him she’d smashed the car, trying to learn to drive—something women shouldn’t undertake, and he agreed!”
Then he laughed, a dry scratchy sound that reminded me of a barking dog. I smiled and hoped he would leave, so I set about preparing Sister Ann Marie’s bandages, pouring some fresh water into her glass.
“She likes it when you read to her,” Brother Wade said, gesturing toward the table, where he had placed several pamphlets on plural marriage that Uncle Kenton had written, along with a copy of the Doctrines and Covenants. “Good to reinforce right thinking in her mind now that her body’s had the devil driven out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My first wife, Irene, doesn’t take to any lollygagging around the house. The other sister wives all have duties to perform. None can spare the time to be down here with Ann Marie, especially now that they have to make up for her work too. I’ll thank my sister Cora for sending you over, Alva Jane. Much appreciated.”
Once he was gone, I turned to Sister Ann Marie. “Can I put a new gauze on?”
She nodded and I pulled the wet gauze from her face. Beneath it, her bad eye was swollen shut and weeping fluid. It looked so beyond repair that I didn’t think she would ever see out of it again. I applied a fresh bandage to it, trying not to hurt her, but she flinched when the new cotton gauze touched her raw skin. Then I sat back, unsure what to do next. Ann Marie seemed to relax a little as she turned her good eye to me. She grunted and mumbled things I could not understand through her wired jaw.
“Do you want water? Juice?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly and drew a sharp intake of breath in response to pain somewhere in her bruised body.
“I can read to you if you’d like,” I offered. I opened the book of Doctrines and Covenants. Sister Ann Marie shook her head again and I could feel her distress.
“What would you like me to do?”
She moved one of her bandaged hands out from under the quilt, three fingers set in a splint. She slid her arm stiffly toward the edge of the bed. Her small hand lay there like a fish that had been pulled from the water and given up the battle to breathe. The effort had cost her and she closed her eyes, exhausted. She looked so awful and I felt so sorry for her that I reached my hand out and laid it over hers, careful not to hurt the broken fingers. She took in a surprised breath when she felt my touch. A moment later, the eye bandage was wet and weeping fluid again. It was only when I removed it that I saw that it was not damp with pus but with Sister Ann Marie’s tears. She cried silently, and her suffering seemed so deep it made me feel like she was locked in a room that I could not enter even if I tried.
I hoped she would fall asleep and stay that way. I wanted to get out of the Barton house, to run to the safety and routine of my own home and not look back. My cramps had subsided and I could feel my blood flowing freely now; the pad between my legs was heavy and damp. Ann Marie’s eyes remained closed; her ragged breathing became steady as she drifted into sleep. I sat, watching her for a long time, afraid to move.
CHAPTER SIX
FOR SIX DAYS SISTER CORA INSISTED THAT I HELP TAKE care of Ann Marie. Each day when I returned home I felt relieved, like I had passed through a dark and dangerous place unscathed. Sister Cora could not fault me for anything; I had done what was asked of me willingly. I had kept sweet. Soon I would be allowed to return to school and my job at the Pineridge store.
I had just returned from the Barton house and was coming up the front porch when I heard my father’s voice from the living room. He was not usually home at this hour. I knew something important was happening when I came in and saw Daddy, Mama, and all the other sister wives assembled together.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said, but he gave me nothing more than a quick nod. I was hurt but did my best to hide my feelings beneath a smile.
“Go on up to your room, Alva. We’ve got some family business to discuss,” my mother said.
I obeyed and headed up the staircase but hovered at the top step, listening. Leigh Ann stepped out of her room and joined me.
“What’s going on?” I mouthed.
Leigh Ann leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Sister Emily went to the prophet to complain about Cliff. I guess it was not the first time she spoke to him about it. Now he’s called Daddy in for a meeting.”
I felt suddenly cold. Uncle Kenton was calling Daddy in for a meeting? That was serious, and I didn’t want to think of what the outcome might be. Leigh Ann put her finger to her lips and we waited, hoping to catch a snippet of conversation from below. All we heard at first were the soft voices of the women murmuring among themselves. Then Daddy’s forceful voice rose above the rest.
“I don’t know what possessed you, Emily. This is a family matter; we could have handled it among ourselves. The boy is getting out of line, but I could have taken steps to deal with that. I was already talking about sending him to Short Creek for a reform retreat. Now it may be out of my hands.”
Sister Emily’s nasal voice pitched higher than usual in consternation. “I just felt I had to do something, Eldon Ray. He’s stirring up insubordination among the others at school.”
Then my mother said, “Sister Emily went to the prophet to make problems for me and my children. She wants to paint us as troublemakers because of her own jealousies!”
“I did nothing of the sort. She—” Sister Emily shot back but Daddy cut her off.
“I will not have this backbiting and carrying on under my roof! The prophet has called a meeting with me because he thinks I cannot control my own family and at moments like these, you women prove him right! There is indeed jealousy among you and when it strikes, love requires an hour on your knees praying alone and asking for forgiveness and t
he resurrection of peace in our home. Emily, you will think twice before you go behind my back to your brother again, if you know what’s good for you. Just like a woman, you have no sense or idea what you could be bringing down upon this family.”
It was the first time I had ever heard my father speak that way. Leigh Ann and I hurried to our rooms when we heard him rise, his footsteps coming toward the foyer. A moment later Mama stepped into our bedroom and closed the door.
“She did it on purpose, just to get us in trouble, no matter what she says!” she whispered fiercely. “I warned Cliff that something like this could happen with Cora and Emily always looking for some way to bring us down!”
“What do you think Uncle Kenton will do, Mama?”
“I don’t know, honey. Your father is a faithful servant to the prophet, Uncle Kenton’s right hand. But you just never know.… ” Her voice trailed off and she took a kitchen timer from her dresser drawer. She set it at one hour. Then she knelt at the edge of her bed, bowed her head, and began praying, as my father had ordered her to.
Clearly now was not the time to tell Mama about my cycle.
Daddy went to the prophet’s compound after dinner and when he returned, he went straight upstairs to Sister Cora’s room, leaving the rest of us to wonder what had happened. The whole house was in a state of uncertainty but we could do nothing but wait for some word from Daddy.
I stayed up well past dinnertime and scripture reading, cleaning the kitchen shelves and reorganizing the cookware in hopes of talking to Cliff when he got home but he had still not returned when Mama told me it was time for bed.
I waited under my covers, staring at the ceiling in the dark of our room until I heard the even breathing of my sisters and my mother. Then I walked quietly down to the kitchen with my math book to work on my sums and wait up for Cliff. It was close to midnight when I heard his gentle push at the kitchen door and he stepped into the dim light, his handsome face in half shadow.
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