Henderson’s wife grinned broadly. “Right here.” She turned to her husband. “Sweetheart, I’ll see you later.” With that, Abbie was ushered into a room and found herself sitting on a padded folding chair next to Henderson’s wife in the front row.
Oh, well, so much for escape, Abbie thought.
After singing “Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer,” the young woman leading the lesson stood up. The lesson was on how LDS women could better support their husbands in these challenging latter days. A middle-aged woman at the back of the room with a loud and nasal voice shared a personal story about how her husband had guided her family through a period of financial difficulty through prayer and following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Now they had a new car and a houseboat in Lake Powell.
Abbie heard the door open at the back of the room. Behind her two women whispered, “Excuse me.” Apparently there were no seats in the back and the two had to walk to the front of the room. They smiled apologetically as they scooted past Mrs. Henderson to the two seats to Abbie’s left. It was Jessica and Sariah. Sariah murmured “Sorry” when she brushed against Abbie’s knees before she sat down. After she sat, she touched Jessica’s forearm with the tenderness of a mother. Jessica placed her hand on top of her older sister’s and squeezed it. Then, absent-mindedly, she started playing with a delicate gold chain around her neck. Abbie glanced at Jessica, who was doing her best to pretend she didn’t recognize the detective. It was then that Abbie saw something sparkle at the end of the necklace, but as soon as Abbie looked again, Jessica had stopped fiddling with the chain.
Abbie didn’t really pay attention to the substance of the lesson. She sang when she was supposed to and smiled when the other women laughed at some mildly amusing comment about men being men. Then she bowed her head for the closing prayer and said amen.
On autopilot, Abbie exchanged pleasantries with Henderson’s wife. It couldn’t hurt to make a good impression. After Henderson’s wife left, Abbie stayed behind outside the chapel doors. She opened her scriptures again and pretended to be reading.
“She can’t be completely surprised. I mean, after all the people he didn’t pay.” Abbie pretended she wasn’t eavesdropping on the two strangers. She kept her head down, staring at whatever two pages her scriptures had fallen open to. The woman and her friend evidently didn’t mind being late for Sunday school.
“There’s no way it was anyone in the ward. I bet it was one of those guys who work on the construction jobs here and then move on,” the other woman said. Abbie had to strain to hear what the women were saying. She tilted her head slightly so that her ear was directly in line with the women’s mouths.
“You know”—the first woman leaned in—“I heard someone saw him with—”
“Hello, Bishop,” the second woman said brightly.
That was the cue for the gossip to end, and it was also the cue for Abbie to get out of the meetinghouse before she was drawn into a conversation with the Bishop about why she was there in the first place. Abbie ducked out the closest side door just as her phone buzzed. It was her dad.
“Abish, I’m in Ogden. Is there any chance you have time to meet for lunch now?”
Abbie was surprised by the question, given how their last conversation had gone. Her father was not one for apologies. Abbie couldn’t help but wonder if he had another message from Port. But despite her misgivings, it was still her dad.
“Actually, I do have time,” Abbie said. She hoped she wasn’t going to regret it.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Yes, some more water would be nice,” Abbie said to the young server with long curly hair pulled into a loose bun. He looked like he’d spent the morning either hiking or mountain biking before coming here to earn just enough cash to support the cost of his outdoor hobbies. He was part of a tribe of such people who moved to the state for skiing, climbing, mountain biking, and a whole slew of new extreme sports. Many of them supported their athletic endeavors by waiting tables when they weren’t in the mountains.
Abbie had been sitting at the table for at least ten minutes. This was not her dad’s kind of restaurant. It served local produce, fish, and wild game. They made their own breads and pasta, or at least that’s what the menu stated. And everyone who worked here had at least one visible tattoo. Her dad must have chosen it because he thought she’d like it. She appreciated the gesture.
People were drinking wine a few tables over. Abbie was debating ordering a glass. She knew her dad would consider it an affront. She really would have liked a glass of something, but she nursed her water with a slice of lemon instead.
Finally, her dad arrived. Abbie watched the hostess direct him to their table. “Hello, Abish. You look well.” The moment he sat down, the waiter appeared and asked him if he’d like to see the wine list. She could see his discomfort.
“No, thank you,” her dad answered. He then turned to his daughter. “How are you settling in?”
Abbie wasn’t sure how to answer this question. Her dad was acting as if the Port conversation hadn’t happened. He was not good at small talk, especially with her. She was really wishing she had that glass of wine right about now.
“Fine,” Abbie said. She was racking her brain to come up with more than a one-word answer. “I never stopped missing the mountains here. It feels like heaven to see them every day now.” She turned the conversation toward her dad. “How are classes going?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Any interesting research?” Abbie asked.
“I’m working on a paper for the Religious Studies Center concerning the period of early statehood after the 1890 Manifesto.” Her dad didn’t need to explain what the 1890 Manifesto was to his daughter. It was President Woodruff’s statement disavowing the practice of polygamy and telling members of the Church to abide by the law of the land. The Church had sent a number of cases to the Supreme Court with the purpose of establishing the practice as protected under First Amendment free exercise of religion. The Supreme Court, it turned out, did not find that polygamy was protected under the Constitution.
Small talk wasn’t Abbie’s strength any more than it was her father’s. Her mom had been the social butterfly of the family. She could charm everyone in the room at parties or conferences. It didn’t matter who you were or where you came from, Hannah Taylor would make you feel like you were the most interesting person she had ever met. It wasn’t an act, either. Abbie’s mom had genuinely found something to like in everyone.
Abbie took a sip of her lemony water in silence. She didn’t know what to say to bridge the awkward gap between her dad and her, and she was grateful when the young waiter returned to take their orders. It was a welcome, if momentary, diversion. Her dad asked for the stroganoff, and she ordered the elk with risotto.
After the waiter left, her dad said, “I’ve known we’ve needed to talk for a long time. John’s been after me for a while to meet you for lunch on neutral territory. I think we need to clear the air.”
Abbie wondered if he was going to talk about Mom. They never had. Not at the hospital, not at the funeral, not at any of the family get-togethers with her brothers and sisters. They’d never said a word.
“I know you blame me for not being at the hospital when your mom died.”
Abbie felt her stomach clench. Her heart started beating hard and fast. Even after three years, the anger was fresh. She didn’t want to speak.
“Abish?”
“I don’t know what to say.” Abbie said the words slowly, willing herself to remain calm. Even so, she knew her voice sounded harsh.
“John thinks you need to tell me how you feel. I know that sounds sentimental.”
“You don’t want to talk about this?” Abbie asked.
“Well, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just, well, I think things like this work themselves out naturally over time. I don’t think they need to be picked apart in conversation.”
That was true. Her father didn’t think
emotions needed to be, or even should be, expressed. Abbie shared some of his reticence to discuss one’s internal world. She was not one for self-indulgent melodrama.
“John thinks it’s been long enough. He told me that if things were going to have worked themselves out between us, they already would have.”
Her older brother was probably right.
“You should have been with us those last five days.” Abbie spoke in a monotone. She was trying to keep her voice moderate, but it wasn’t. Each word was clipped and had an edge you could cut stone with.
“I know you think that.”
That was it? His best response was not to admit he’d been wrong, but only to admit that she thought he was?
“No, Dad, everyone thinks that! It was bad enough that you were always gone while we were growing up. You left Mom to do everything and then had the audacity to think that your sheer presence at Sunday dinner or for forty-five minutes every evening before you abandoned us all again made you a good dad. It didn’t. You weren’t. But I accepted it. We all did. Even Mom. She loved you and she knew your work was important to you, so it was important to her. But, when we all knew we were at the end … she was in so much pain, but she was with us. We could talk. We even laughed. And you weren’t fucking there. Not for any of it, because of what? Some stupid Church thing that you did like a lapdog because some Apostle asked you—”
“Abish.” Her dad said her name quietly. She hadn’t raised her voice that much, but she had used the word “fucking.” Abbie inhaled and then exhaled. He was right: the word had been uncalled for.
“Dad, you abandoned Mom when she was dying? Every morning, she asked where you were. For days we covered for you. We said you had this obligation or that obligation. What was so important that you were not at your wife’s bedside for the last five days of her life?”
Her dad looked crumpled. He didn’t say anything. The waiter returned with their food, but instead of explaining the intricacies of their dishes, as one would expect in a restaurant like this, he turned and left, mumbling something about them enjoying their meals.
“I thought I had more time,” her dad said with a sadness that probably would have melted anyone else’s heart.
“More time?” Her tone was harsh, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She’d vented to John and to Phillip, but she’d never talked to her dad about those last days. There had been nothing but hostile silence on the subject. Now that the topic had been broached, Abbie was flooded with fresh grief and anger. Even as the adult in her struggled to find forgiveness or understanding, the little girl who had lost her mom wanted to lash out. “What could have been so important that you would risk that precious time? The doctors were clear. They said—”
“The doctors said we probably had two or three weeks.”
“And you think that makes it okay? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Port asked me to fly to upstate New York,” her dad said. “There had been a discovery of some documents. The person who owned them wouldn’t let them out of his sight. The Church didn’t want to acquire them unless we were certain they were authentic. There was the flight, then the drive. It just took so much time.”
“And why couldn’t that wait? If those documents had been around since the 1800s, they could wait another month.”
“Well, that was it. There were other bidders involved. Port didn’t want other people to have them if they were real.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Abbie asked.
Abbie stabbed at her elk. It was rare and probably delicious, but she had no appetite.
“You have to understand, these were very sensitive documents,” her dad said.
“My God. If you still think that a bunch of papers that could have embarrassed the Church were more important than being with Mom, then you’re … you’re … I don’t know what the hell you are.”
Abbie took a long drink of her water, again wishing it were wine or something even stronger. Anger radiated from every cell in her body. She wasn’t proud of the resentment she’d been nursing since her mom had died, but she felt justified in her judgment. She was right. He was wrong.
She looked up from her glass of water. Her dad seemed to have shrunk before her eyes. She’d never seen him like this. They had a long history of verbal sparring, albeit usually without Abbie swearing. Every conversation started with an opening gambit. The goal was checkmate or to force the other to knock down his or her king.
Her dad reached across the table and touched his daughter’s hand.
“Is there any way I can make this right?”
Abbie was caught off guard by her dad’s vulnerability. She had clung to her anger so long that unclenching was almost as painful as the anger itself.
“Did Port know how sick Mom was?” Abbie asked.
Her dad looked down at his plate, as untouched as Abbie’s was. “Yes.”
“Yes? Let me get this straight, Port knew he was asking you to leave your wife’s side while she was dying so you could fly across the country to make sure those damn documents didn’t contain anything that could embarrass the Church? Is that right?”
Abbie’s dad nodded.
“This is the same Church that spends millions of dollars on PR campaigns and ‘I’m a Mormon’ ads instead of, oh I don’t know, helping the poor and the sick? I mean, we’ve already established no one gives a damn about the dying. It was more important to protect the Church’s image than for you to be with your wife during her last days on earth.”
“We thought there was more time…”
“To hell with you.”
Abbie stood up.
“Abish, please, I was wrong.”
Abbie had never heard her father admit he was wrong about anything. Ever.
“You’re right. You’re right about all of it: about the rush to authenticate the documents, about the money the Church spends on PR, about Port asking me to leave Hannah and, most of all, about me leaving her and all of you.”
Abbie sat back down.
“I love your mother. She was the only person in the world who understood me and loved me anyway. Since that day I boarded the plane for New York, my world has been gray. The color hasn’t come back. I wake up every morning knowing I missed those last days where I could have held her hand and kissed her hair. The only solace I have is in knowing I’ll be reunited with her. I know we are married for all eternity.”
Abbie didn’t believe in marriage for “time and all eternity,” but at that moment she understood why it was so important for her dad to cling to his faith. Five days wasn’t all that bad in the scheme of forever. Abbie didn’t share her father’s need to believe, but she understood it. She felt the anguish of his regret.
Abbie’s heart broke. She saw her dad for who he was: a man who loved his wife, and now she was gone. She knew what it was like to love someone, to think you would always have a chance to take back that thing you said when you were annoyed, to rely on tomorrow to make things right. Abbie had loved Phillip and he had loved her, but they were human. They both had said things—done things—they would have liked to make better if there had been time.
“Dad? Do you still miss her?”
Her dad had tears in his eyes, but he didn’t answer.
“You know,” Abish went on, “she used to send me Valentine’s Day cards every year up until the very end. Sometimes funny ones and sometimes mushy ones, but I always got one, no matter what.”
Her dad shook his head. “I didn’t know that.”
“When we were little and you’d go away for a conference, Mom would make breakfast for dinner. We’d have pancakes and chocolate sauce, strawberries, maple syrup … whatever we wanted. We’d eat on the floor in the family room watching TV.” Abbie smiled, but tears were rolling down her cheeks. Her dad handed her his neatly folded and pressed handkerchief.
“I don’t think I ever told you,” Abbie said as she dried her eyes with her dad’s square of cotton, “but my first semester i
n college, I completely bombed an English essay. It was dripping in red ink. I was devastated. I locked myself in a bathroom stall and just cried and cried. I was convinced I was going to be kicked out and my life would be over. Then Mom called like she always did on Thursday night. She calmed me down, told me I could do it, and then spent the rest of the night helping me figure out how to rewrite the essay—word by word. We were up all night.”
Her dad reached across the table. This time he took Abbie’s hand in his own and answered her question. “I miss her. I still really miss her.”
Damn it. I still miss her, too.
TWENTY-SIX
Abbie texted Clarke and told him to take the rest of the day off. They could start early in the morning instead of Sunday evening. The day had taken its toll. Abbie opened a bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs and poured a generous amount into a heavy crystal tumbler. Some people reserved bubbly for celebratory occasions. Abbie, though, was a firm believer in the words, apocryphal or not, of the great Lily Bollinger: “I drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty.” She took a sip of the champagne (or, sparkling wine, if you were going to be persnickety about the French claim to the regional name). The bubbles had the effect she was hoping for. They gave her a little space to relax.
She wasn’t proud of the language she’d used with her dad. She knew she’d said some things more to hurt him than to release her anger, which didn’t exactly make her feel as if she’d handled the conversation as well as she could have. But for the first time since her mom had passed away, there wasn’t a wall between them. As difficult as that lunch had been, Abbie was grateful it had happened.
After a second sip, Abbie couldn’t deny how exhausted she was. Her eyes felt sandy and her body was drained. She might as well go to sleep. She set down the glass of pale golden bubbles, climbed the stairs to her room, and crawled into bed. Sleep must have come quickly, because when her phone buzzed, it was pitch black outside.
Blessed be the Wicked Page 17