“Yes,” I said slowly, “according to the calculations of Bishop Ussher, the earth celebrated its six thousandth birthday in October 1997.”
“But you believe differently?” Katie asked.
I tried to count to ten again but got lost by four. “Yes, I do. Modern scientific thought and analysis suggests it’s more like four point six
billion
years old.”
“Give or take a few thousand,” said Katie.
“Katie, that’s enough,” said her mother.
Katie’s eyes went blank. “Sorry, Mother. I meant no unkindness.”
“Apologize to Em, dear; she’s the one you’ve been baiting.”
Katie turned toward me, opening her mouth to speak, but I held up a hand, the one that happened to have the big wad of gauze on it. “I’m the one who should apologize. Sorry.” Uncomfortable showing my physical wound as well as my
psychic ones, I dropped my hand, wincing as I hit my bandaged thumb on the edge of the table. I felt confused and agitated. The fights at my parents’ house never ended with apologies.
Nina said, “George says that Heavenly Father made the earth just
look
old to test our faith.”
As my mouth sagged open, Katie turned toward Nina. “Nina, what church do you attend?”
Nina blinked. “Well, I’m Mormon … .” she said, letting her voice trail off oddly.
Ray, who had scrupulously worked to train his five senses on his dinner throughout my skirmish with his sister, kept his head bowed toward his plate, but his eyes were now alert and on Nina.
Katie said, “But I don’t recall that teaching. Which ward do you attend?”
Nina’s mouth opened and closed again. “We … I attend … I’m not …”
“Not supposed to say?” I asked.
Nina closed her eyes and nodded. The color had drained from her face.
With exasperation heavy in her voice, Ava said, “Katie, you are my most inquisitive daughter. But can you please set your curiosity aside for now? I am concerned that you should save your questions for your hours of prayer, so that your curiosity might better sustain your faith.”
“Certainly, Mother,” Katie replied. “Kirsten, could you please pass the rolls?”
RAY LED ME out onto the patio above the swimming pool while the other women cleared away the dinner. “I’d prefer to be helping them clear the table,” I told him. Little that I liked adhering to presumed roles of male and female behavior, I
wasn’t ready to be alone with him. Not now, and maybe not ever. My brain was wired to examine everything, to consider every idea and bit of evidence it was presented, and I just couldn’t stand to consider that his world might be right and mine wrong. That would be too shattering.
“I need to talk to you before I go home,” he said.
And be alone with the memory of your wife,
I thought. “Okay,” I said with a sigh. “But shoot low, Sheriff, I’m riding a Shetland.”
Ray stared out into the dance of lights that was Salt Lake City. “I’m sorry if things got uncomfortable in there for you,” he said. “My sister—”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, pulling myself toward my moral center. “Through bitter experience, I have learned that it’s better to apologize as I go along than to store up a load of guilt and idiocy for worse humiliation later on. I bought into a fight in there, and when it went bad on me, I was more defensive than the situation warranted. I’ve just been sucked into so many debates with creationists that I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve started throwing the first punch.” Even though this sounded like an apology, it was, in fact, a challenge. I wanted to know what Ray believed. I wanted to know if there was any hope for a relationship with him, any hope that I hadn’t been dreaming when I imagined that a life of questioning might be truly welcome with him. I wanted him to speak, to string words together, to tell me what he was
thinking
for a change.
Ray said, “It’s true that the church has no policy on all that.”
“Oh,” I said. It was beginning to be my reply to everything.
“Brigham Young admired the work of Charles Darwin.”
“Huh?”
“He said, ‘The glory of God is intelligence.’”
“Mmm.”
“It’s carved in the walls at BYU.”
“That’s nice.”
Now Ray said, “Mmm.”
“Well,” I said, “I guess I don’t really
care
what other people believe as long as they’re not saying that all people who don’t agree with the power elite must suffer in silence or be exterminated.”
The corners of Ray’s lips curled. His eyes danced. “That’s harsh.”
I looked away. I couldn’t look into those dark blue eyes and see that spark and not feel ignited by it. “Well, yeah, but the thing is, I do feel exterminated, or just a little part of me does, every time some proselytizing zealot sticks a foot in my door and chants a pat system of beliefs at me.”
“Ouch,” he said.
Embarrassed, I said, “I was thinking of the Jehovah’s Witness missionaries, not yours. The closest contact I’ve had with Mormon missionaries was when a couple of your guys got lost and stopped to ask directions to the highway from a back road near my folks’ ranch. You go on a mission?” I asked, immediately wishing I hadn’t. Part of me preferred to leave my knowledge of Ray as generic as possible, lest my fantasies collapse under the harsh weight of reality.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“In New York City.”
For once, Ray had offered a piece of information about himself unasked. It felt oddly intimate, and in spite of my best instincts, I began to lower my guard, and my mind slipped unconsciously into absorbing this bit of data, analyzing it, seeing where it fit. It made sense that he had done his mission in a city, rather than in the country. I could not see Ray in some Third World country, slogging along a dirt trail from hut to
hut in a narrow black tie, black pants, white shirt, and ELDER RAYMOND badge.
He said, “I’m hoping you won’t mind staying here a day or two to kind of keep an eye on Nina.”
I snapped back to present time and space, furious. “And see what else I can get out of her? Maybe get her to say something self-incriminating?”
Ray bowed his head. He’d jammed his hands into his pockets and now he hunched his shoulders to his ears. Between his teeth, he said, “She seems to trust you.”
“She’s a grown woman. Why not just let her go home?”
Ray said, “We don’t know she isn’t a minor.”
“Right,” I said, “and she may or may not have been George’s wife, but she didn’t live with him. So where is home? Maybe she’s eighteen or even twenty now, but how long has she been married?”
“And why’s she dressed in rags?” Ray continued. “What kind of care is anyone taking of her? Think about it, Em; she doesn’t come from the same kind of life you and I have known.”
His words cut to my heart. I thought,
I have not known a life like yours,
but I said, “Maybe she’s a reincarnated hippie.”
Ray sighed in exasperation.
“No sale, Ray; you’re going to have to spell it out for me. What is it you’re trying to get out of her?”
He said nothing for a while; then, evasively, and with great discomfort, he said, “There are groups that don’t conform to central church teachings.”
“So?”
“Polygamy is no longer, ah, sanctioned by the church.”
“And?”
Ray struggled, but got the story out. “And there have been cases of very remote … very isolated groups that have split
off from the church. But they still call themselves Mormon. They get pretty far out there in their beliefs and teachings. Like marrying off fourteen-year-olds. Like … Em, Nina seems frightened. She didn’t go home when she ran away from George Dishey’s house. Have you thought about that?”
“Yes, but—”
“What if she fears a beating? The matron who frisked her down at the station found bruises that looked like they’d been systematically applied. She also found burn scars and in her fingers bones that had been broken and poorly set.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Maybe she knows who killed George, and—”
I groaned. “She told George’s corpse she’d be with him soon …”
Seeing that he’d made his point, Ray said no more.
I said, “But I can’t stay here tomorrow. Can’t your mother look after her or something?”
Ray looked a question.
Mentally shaking myself free of the irons he was putting on me, I said, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you what I learned this afternoon at the university.” I cut to the chase, explaining why I couldn’t babysit Nina. “I’m going on Dan Sherbrooke’s field trip. Don’t worry, I’ve made arrangements to get on the bus down by the Salt Palace Convention Center, not up in Snowbird. It’ll get me out of shooting range all day and I’ll learn stuff that might have a bearing on the case. If it has no bearing, then I’m in no danger going on the trip. I can ask people on the bus all kinds of things. You see, Dan and George had this competition going, and—”
“No.”
“You’ve got no way to hold me!” I stared straight into Ray’s eyes, and he stared back at me, furious and frightened.
Katie spoke from the doorway. “Momma’s waiting for you to lead the prayer,” she said.
Ray gave me two more counts of heat, spun around, and stalked into the house.
I watched through the doorway as he stormed about the living room, marching this way and that past his astonished family, now picking up a book, now marching out to the entryway and returning with a small vial, now putting both down on an end table and rubbing his face with his hands. All waited patiently as he collected himself. No one spoke as he stared for a while out a far window, then turned, bowed his head, raked one hand through his hair, and mouthed silent words. At last, he lifted a calmed, tired face to his sisters, mother, brother-in-law, nieces, and nephew, smiled to Nina, and began to speak audibly. “Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the bounty of health and happiness Thou hast bestowed upon us. We ask a blessing upon this family and upon our guests. May each” He looked up at me. “and
every
one of us know Your love and guidance in the days ahead and travel always in Your light and protection. In Christ’s name, amen.”
“Amen,” answered the gathering in the living room. All sat with arms folded across their chests, heads bowed.
“Amen,” I whispered, my eyes brimming with tears.
“We’ll have no lesson tonight,” he said. “It’s late already, and Timmy needs extra sleep.”
Several heads bobbed up in surprise.
“Um, but until we meet again, we shall all contemplate the miracle of continued revelation. We shall all pray that more of God’s plan for each and every one of us will be revealed.”
Ray nodded to Enos, who rose and followed him over to the miniature rocking chair in which Timothy sat sniffling. Enos put his hands on the child’s near shoulder.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” Ray said, “I ask that you bring the bounty of renewed health to Your son Timothy.” Ray opened the vial and poured a drop of oil on the crown of his sniffling nephew’s head. He closed and pocketed the vial,
placed both hands atop the child’s head, and closed his eyes for a while. “In Christ’s name, amen.”
“Amen,” said his family.
Ray and Enos then moved to Nina. “Dear Heavenly Father—” Ray was interrupted as Nina slid off the couch and knelt in front of him, eyes closed, arms folded in prayer. The women’s eyes widened at what was apparently an unusual posture for receiving a blessing. Ray said, “Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that You shine Your special light upon Your daughter Nina, that she may grow in Your love and kindness. Help her to know Your plan for her. Enfold her in Your comfort in this, her hour of need.” He anointed her head and placed his hands upon her flaxen hair. Enos put his hands on her shoulder. “In Christ’s name, amen.”
“Amen.”
Then Ray turned toward me. He stared out through the open doorway at me, a silent invitation to come and be blessed. A few heads turned, watching me in curiosity.
My feet were frozen to the ground.
Ray bowed his head again, and said, “Dear Heavenly Father, we ask a special blessing also for Your daughter Emily Hansen, that she may also know Your deepest love and guidance in the days to come. In Christ’s name, amen.”
“Amen,” said his family.
I could not respond. My lips had frozen, too.
I AWOKE FROM A TERRIBLE DREAM IN WHICH SHINING bronze teeth were flying toward my face. I sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, the image of those teeth, four inches long, curved, serrated, continued to sink into my now-waking consciousness, biting, twisting … . I switched on the bedside lamp, fighting to clear the image from my mind.
Nina was gone. I felt it in the center of my brain before I fully understood the scene that was in front of me. I swiveled my legs out from under the bedclothes and stood up.
Nina’s bed was empty, the sumptuous comforter neatly replaced over the pillow and the flannel nightgown Ava had lent her laid tenderly across the bed.
Still reeling from the strength and horror of the dream, I ran across the room and checked the bathroom. Nina was not there. I grabbed my jacket on the way out into the hall and ran for the stairs, flicking on lights as I went, unconcerned about how much noise I made or whom I awoke. I searched the kitchen, the living room, the study, and the dining room, and as I doubled back through the kitchen, I almost ran smack into Ava. “What’s happened?” she demanded, pulling her robe more tightly around her throat.
“Nina’s gone. Made her bed. Gone.” I felt a chill run
through me, a sensation like getting wet. It set off a series of associations.” I said, “We need to check the pool.”
Ava threw the sliding door wide and flicked on the patio light.
I broke into a run and charged toward the pool. A little voice in my head said,
You’re not a swimmer. What do you think you’re doing?
I hit the water feetfirst. The chill jabbed every inch of my body like needles, but I groped about in the water, feeling for flesh that I feared would be as cold. As my lungs began to scream for air, I came roaring to the surface, thrashing, clawing for the side. “I—I can’t find her!” I screamed.
Ava broke through the surface ten feet from me and spluttered, “Kirsten! The light!”
Suddenly, light flooded the waters, and I saw Nina’s silent form beneath the surface, a flower with petals formed of wafting hair and dress, an improbable angel hovering in the waters. A haze of blood bloomed from one side of her head. “There!” I yelled.
Ava bent and dove, her strong athletic arms driving her quickly to the sunken girl. I watched her grasp Nina and kick, lifting her from the bottom. The water’s surface shattered again as Ava reached for air, reeled Nina into an armlock, and pulled toward the steps at the shallow end of the pool with strong, certain strokes. “Phone nine one one!” she yelled. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”
“Already got them on the line, Mumma,” Kirsten called from the edge of the pool. “Send an ambulance. Hurry!” In the soft illumination from the underwater floodlights, I saw Kirsten’s slender hands set down a cordless phone and reach to help draw Nina out of the pool. She grunted as she fell backward onto the decking, hauling Nina’s limp form with her.
Ava hurried up the steps and the two rolled Nina onto her back, checked her pulse, and listened for breath. Mother and
daughter glanced quickly at each other, shook their heads, and set to work initiating CPR. Kirsten straightened her arms, placed both hands on Nina’s chest, and threw her weight toward it. Ava bent, pinched Nina’s nose, closed her lips around Nina’s pale mouth, and breathed.
Kirsten fell in rhythmic lurches onto Nina’s rib cage. Ava listened. Breathed. Listened.
Suddenly, Nina coughed, sputtered, and belched pool water onto the decking.
Ava said, “Good, you foolish girl, breathe the breath God gave you!”
Kirsten asked, “She okay, Mumma?”
Nina’s eyes fluttered open. She coughed again, moaned, and raised a hand to the wound on her head.
“She’ll be fine,” Ava told Kirsten. “Phone Ray, will you?”
“I already did.”
Ava gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “When did you do that, you clever girl?”
“Just before I dialled nine one one. Speed dialer, Mumma. He answered on the first ring, and all I said was, ‘Nina’s in the pool. Come,’ and hung up. Do you think I ought to give him another call?”
“No, that will do it. But unlock the front door so the medics can get in. Nina’s bleeding.”
Nothing bleeds like a head wound. Blood now coated the decking underneath her head, eerily dark in the light from the pool and porch light. Nina began to shiver, as much from shock as from the cold. “Th-th-thank You,” she said. “D-dear Heavenly F-father, th-thank You.”
Ava folded a fresh expanse of her nightgown, pressed it against Nina’s face and said softly, “What are you talking about, girl? You’re not making sense. You try to kill yourself, and now you’re thanking God for saving you.”
“N-no!” Nina said. “I didn’t! I … I tripped.”
“You what?” I said.
“I … I was just out here to pray,” Nina said in a tiny lost voice. “I can’t swim … I … I heard a noise … I’m not used to the city … I stepped backwards and tripped over something in the dark. I
know
better. Brother Neph—”
“You were out here praying? You’ll catch your death of cold!” Ava scolded.
“Th-thank You, F-Father!” Nina bawled. “You sent Your angel into the waters to draw me out! Dear Heavenly Father, th-thank Thee for Thy m-mercy! I am reborn!”
“Thank Em, dear.” Ava looked up at me and gave me a look I could not quite decipher. “What woke you, Em?” she asked. “Which one of your five senses told you Nina was in trouble?”
I couldn’t answer. In the moment that Nina had given herself up to her prayer of thanksgiving, her face had stretched long and her eyes had focused into pinpoints of light. With the softness of her youth thus erased, I noticed for the first time how high her cheekbones were, and recognized the antic glow of charismatic zealotry I had seen that morning up at Snowbird in the face of the bearded man.
AVA BRUSHED AND dried Nina’s hair as if she were a little girl, delicately arranging it around the butterfly sutures the paramedics had applied to her forehead. “There, now,” she said soothingly, “that’s lovely. You have lovely hair, Nina; so soft and shiny. George is surely smiling on you from heaven.”
Nina tugged the high-necked flannel gown closer to her throat and leaned up against Ava, heightening the effect of childishness. “Do you really think so?” she asked. “I do so want him to be proud of me.”
“Oh, Nina , he
is.
What more could a man ask than that his wife love him as you do?”
Nina snuffled. “I did my best.”
“And your best was
excellent.”
I watched from the comfort of my own bed, wishing someone would care for me like that. But Ava was intent on Nina, who had suffered more than just a dousing. And, I was sure, Ava saw no need to comfort me. I was, after all, still good old poker-faced Em, the one who needs nothing, asks nothing. The one who manages at all times to shy away from such things as intimacy.
“Ava,” Nina asked tentatively, “your husband has passed on, too, right?”
“Yes … .”
“Well, I was wondering … how do you . . know for sure that he loved you, too?”
Ava turned off the dryer but continued to comb Nina’s now glossy hair, running the brush with one hand and smoothing it with the other. “Look into your heart, Nina; you know the answer to that question. When you fall in love, all the world seems to smile at you, but that’s not love. Loving is an active verb, a thing you do, not just some feeling that overwhelms you today and fades tomorrow.” She glanced sidelong at me, just a split second, but I noticed. “Look at how he treated you, not what he said. When you love someone, you do for that love what you would do for yourself, or for God; you care for it, nurture it, do right by it, follow its dictates, no matter what it costs you. Love is rewarded for its own sake, with a deeper satisfaction than the flesh can know.” She glanced at me again, and this time I was certain she was sending me a message. Was she warning me away from her boy or instructing me on how to love him?
Nina said, “But what do I do now, Ava? George is gone!”
Ava drew the crown of the girl’s head to her lips. “That will come to you, Nina. You continue to love him, that’s all.”
Nina contracted, and the tears began to flow again. “He …
he looked so
awful!
His chest was ripped open. And … and he was
gray
and
purple!”
Ava put her arms around the girl and rocked her. “Nina, my husband died slowly. In great pain. He had cancer. By the time he died, he was shrunken up like a lizard. His cheekbones stuck out like a skull’s. His eyes were yellow with jaundice. His breath was … indescribable. He shook. He moaned. There were big red scars from the surgeon’s incisions all over him. But I told myself that deep inside he was still the boy I’d married. I let him see that in my eyes. I held my love up to him instead of a mirror, so he could see his true self and not despair. Now you do that, too, Nina; look into your heart to the man you love there, and know that he is strong and whole again, and waiting for you in the Celestial Kingdom, loving you just the same.”
Nina sniffled. “I want to … .”
Ava smiled into Nina’s eyes. “Think of him as the god he is becoming. It’s easy. It erases that other image. That fades, and you get back George as you knew him at all ages, and all times. Now get some sleep. Everything will seem easier in the morning.” She laid her fragile houseguest back against the sheets, pulled the covers up to her chin, and kissed her cheek just as if she’d been her own daughter.
TWO HOURS LATER, Nina spoke to me from the darkness, her voice hushed by the soft pillows and comforter that surrounded her head. “Em?”
“Yes, Nina?” I tried not to sound as exhausted as I felt.
“Thank you.”
“It was nothing, Nina.”
“How can I ever repay you?”
“I’ll think of something,” I said flippantly. I rolled over and looked for the fifth or sixth time at the bedside clock. It was
half past three. Ava had left at two, and each time I had nearly drifted off since then, Nina had let out a quavering sob. I despaired of getting further sleep.
“Em?”
“Yes, Nina?”
“How did you know I was d-drowning?”
“I—” How
had
I known? “I woke up from a dream is all. You weren’t there, so I went looking for you.”
“What was the dream?”
“It was—” No, I couldn’t tell her about those teeth. Not if I ever hoped to have her get back to sleep and leave me hope of doing so also. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
Nina was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Em?”
“Yes, Nina?”
“What
are
you?”
I tensed further, fearful that the poor chick thought I was an angel. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re a Gentile, but George said there were different kinds.”
I recalled the Mormon definition of
Gentile
—anyone who is not Mormon—and said, “I’m a freethinker, I guess.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I follow what makes sense and seems truest.”
“But isn’t that
dangerous
?”
This idea startled me. “No, I don’t think so. Don’t you think everyone should have the freedom of their own beliefs?”
“But Brother Nephi says that freedom of belief is the handmaiden of the Devil. He says—”
“Brother who?”
“Oh!” I could hear the swish of crisp bedclothes rubbing together as Nina pulled herself up into a ball.
“Who is Brother Nephi, Nina?”
Breathlessly she answered, “I’m not supposed to talk about him to the outside!”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s God’s annointed, and we have to protect him from the evil of small minds.” The words came out like a recitation.
I thought about asking how small she thought my mind was, but I let it go. So she was part of a cult led by a paranoiac, or perhaps some escapee from the law who was hiding under the cloak of religious propriety. So what. As long as he didn’t know where to find us, I wanted desperately to sleep. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing,” I said, trying to keep the note of irony out of my voice.
“If he even knew I was staying in this house, he’d be angry.”
At a loss for anything more intelligent to say in comfort, I mumbled, “Don’t worry, Nina. Brother Raymond gave you Heavenly Father’s blessing tonight, and I’m sure
he
knew what he was doing, too.”
But what had Ray been doing? That entire scene had been alien to me, a glimpse into another world. I was still trying to figure out what channel my mental television had been tuned to.
I heard sobbing. Nina had the waterworks running again. I lay in the dark, listening, wondering when I could hope to greet the oblivion of sleep again. I folded my hands on the counterpane, resigning myself to the likelihood that my brief snooze on the couch before dinner and the two or three hours of sleep I’d gotten before Nina went swimming might be it for the night. I stared balefully at the illuminated dial of the bedside clock. It was almost four. After Ava had left, I’d listened to Nina sob for two hours, and now this. Girl talk, panic, and more sobs. Ray was right: Nina didn’t come from a background anything like mine. “What about George?” I asked. “How would George have liked you to handle this time of stress?”