Chapter 1 #2
I forced air into my lungs, dampening my unreleased sobs. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m not giving in to this weakness of the flesh.” I slid back through the doorway to the entry, where our neat row of hats hung along the narrow wall. “I’ll find my hat and be off.”
As I moved, I sensed the Devil hanging on my chest like a millstone. Each breath in felt unworthy, but I forced myself through it. I had to prove I was capable of the perfection God demanded of me. At last, my heart slowed some.
Aunt Emma strode back into the entry, her eyebrow raised at the remnants of my display.
“Elder Crowther’s office?”
Of course, she would be listening in. I busied my fingers with retrieving my hat and tried to focus on more air, the only solution to lessening the weight pressing down on me.
“That’s over ten blocks. She shouldn’t go alone in this pathetic disposition. I’ll fetch Ammon.”
“I don’t need him to accompany me. I’m strong enough.”
“Are you truly, Hazel?” Her eyes shot accusations at me, ones I knew were all too true. I was pitiful. “You need your brother to escort you for your own good.” She looked over at Mother, who reluctantly met her gaze. “Don’t you agree it’s proper, Sister Mary?”
Mother’s eye twitched but she otherwise maintained her calm demeanor, unable to defend even her own daughter if it meant causing disagreement. “Thank you, Sister Emma. How generous of you to loan us your son.”
Aunt Emma smiled in triumph. “Ammon! Ammon, come down here now to escort your sister.” She climbed up the stairs two at a time to fetch him.
I gave my mother an expectant look, ignoring the dizzying in my head that often accompanied one of my panics. “This isn’t necessary. He’s only sixteen, not exactly a chaperone. And I need to hurry.”
“He’s your oldest brother,” she said.
“Living brother,” I whispered to myself.
I often imagined my brother Heber and I would’ve been great friends if he had lived past our childhood.
If he and the other lost babies had lived, then perhaps Father would never have needed to marry Aunt Emma and produce more children for Zion.
I shifted my weight between my feet, forcing a damper on thoughts of things I couldn’t change, and continued.
“Please, I can’t delay and I’m not required to have a chaperone. She’s only trying to rub it in—”
“It’s best not to argue with Sister Emma,” Mother cut me off but gently touched my shoulder.
“Contention is a tool of the Adversary. A proper Mormon woman doesn’t cause arguments or disputes.
If you learn nothing else from me, Hazel, remember that it is your calling as a future wife and mother to be a help-meet and a source of peace.
Don’t waste your time trying to be right.
It’s better to simply be quiet. …” She trailed off, biting her lip as she looked away.
As always, Mother was right. I needed to improve, even with my wicked panics.
Better yet, I needed to be smaller, less of a person to worry about.
And yet, I couldn’t resist the undercurrent within me, to be more and find a life unfettered.
But such desires were only my sinful nature—something to be squashed and scorched away.
Ammon slouched down the stairs, dutifully shoving his arms into his worn brown coat.
Spring in Salt Lake was a constant seesaw between threats of snow and blazing heat, and today the sun was hidden behind a thick layer of gray clouds.
With a forced smile, I fixed my hat over my pulled-back curls and threw open the door.
Our house was a fine two-storied brick home, much like the others stretching down the street.
Father’s occupation at the newspaper made us stable enough to never want, though we were far from the wealthiest of the Saints in Salt Lake.
Ammon clamored behind me down the wooden porch steps and onto the sidewalk lining the dirt street.
I pivoted sharply without saying a word to him, headed toward the center of our bustling Deseret—the true Mormon name of our territory. Despite the itch of guilt at my pride, I didn’t bother to wait for Ammon, but his lanky legs caught up with me in a flash.
“You don’t have to walk me,” I said, allowing my fizzling worries to morph into frustration. “You can run off to see your girl and I won’t tell your mother.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright flush of pink overtake his face at my teasing.
“No, I’ll mind my task.”
I bumped him with my elbow as he passed, the tension between us simmering.
He was already taller than me and would probably grow even more by the end of summer.
His golden-brown hair matched mine, as well as his chestnut eyes.
We’d both inherited our father’s nose, and he, Aunt Emma’s stiff chin, while I favored our father’s soft features around the mouth.
In any other city in America, a gentile passerby would’ve easily taken us for full siblings and left it at that, but here everyone knew we were truly two out of thousands of children in families throughout the Territory, all mixed up and gathered in the crucible of plural marriage.
Ammon slowed his steps again as we crossed the block. “You worried about Elder Crowther’s summon? Bet you an extra dessert helping you’re in trouble.”
“Betting, little brother? Then perhaps we should skip this excursion altogether and go to a gambling den. I’m sure the bishop would love to hear about that adventure.”
His mischievous smile dimmed. “I’m sure he’d also love to hear about the book I found under your pillow.”
My boot slipped on an uneven edge of the sidewalk, and I caught myself by grabbing the edge of his sleeve.
No one was supposed to know about the hidden dime novel I kept with its story of daring romance. “Promise me you’ll never tell anyone about it, especially not the bishop. I swear, I’ll throw it away. I meant to, that is. I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t planning to—”
“Golly, Hazel, you’re always so dramatic. I was only joking.”
Certainly, to him it was only a lark. Though only sixteen, Ammon was still a man and as such, entitled to the priesthood—God’s power given to men on earth to pronounce blessings and to govern over the church.
All men deemed worthy were given the priesthood through religious rite, regardless of their occupation.
That priesthood allowed them to rule not only over the church in all positions of authority but also over their families, wives, children, and eventually, eternal kingdoms in the life after death where they would become gods.
Ammon would never understand what position he held over me and my whole sex simply by virtue of being born male. A man reported with a scandalous book was worth a stern talking-to at most. A woman was branded a whore.
I immediately buried the weight of that reality.
My church and my God demanded that I be more than I was, and I hated myself for my failures.
A good Mormon woman was submissive, faithful, and always joyful.
She never complained or caused contention, and she certainly never questioned the authority of those over her.
She read books of the highest virtue and spoke in the sweetest tones.
She obeyed her husband’s command and reared children to do the same. And only then was she acceptable.
It had to be this way. God willed it so, and I had to obey or risk losing my eternal soul.
I shoved down the possibility that there was another way, another life.
My hand fiddled in my pocket searching for something it’d never find as we walked on in silence.
Mormonism was all I knew. I had to be this remarkable woman. I had no other choice, surely.
A trolley bell dinged as it ambled down the center of the road on its metal rails, toward the heart of Salt Lake.
The noises of the city center were picking up now: horses braying, carts rolling against the dust of the street, the distant din of hammers and chisels from the Temple builders.
I relished in the familiarity. This was home.
Everything in Salt Lake spread out from the center square of the rising granite Temple like appendages, every block neat and organized into exact squares across the city.
Carts and horses drove past tall, redbrick buildings and shops lining the road.
Between all the bustle, women walked in their long, simple dresses with baskets for errands, and men in their starch suits or dirt-covered clothes for a day of labor.
The prophet Brigham Young’s particular vision for his beehive oasis in the desert lived on past him.
His imposing fingerprints were all over every nook and cranny of the great Utah Territory, from its cooperative enterprises to far-flung towns to hardly secular governments.
This spider’s web was his creation—a home for Mormons in the toiling hard soils of the west, far from the persecutions and influences of the hostile gentiles.
I’d heard many visitors who came to Salt Lake were surprised to find a hustling, modern city, despite its curious residents and our peculiar polygamist way of life.
But to myself, Ammon, and many other Mormons milling in and out of the houses and stores surrounding us, it was the only way of life—the uncompromising bastion of our religion worth bleeding for when we were told.
No threats of Eastern sensitives or federal government interference would wrangle this beast from our hands.
Plural marriage was God’s principle and command, and our people would rather lie down in death than surrender to man’s laws.
Ammon took the last block almost at a jog.
The Council House appeared ahead of us as we passed the Lion and Beehive Houses, where Brother Brigham used to live.
As a child, I would try and peek in the windows of these magnificent homes hoping to catch a glimpse of the prophet’s many elegant wives.
But the family had moved out since his death, leaving only the ghosts of their past refinement behind.
I looked up at the house and a shiver rolled down my spine. The curtains covering the upper far-left window rustled and parted open. I paused, uncertain for a moment about what I saw.
A woman’s face, her expression long and mournful.
I blinked and the figure was gone, the window as empty as it was before, the drapes shut up tight.
I shook the image from my head. My mind was too much in a whirl this morning for sense, a remnant of my earlier panic. But Elder Crowther was waiting for me and I couldn’t delay any longer to ponder on it.
We arrived at Council House and I motioned for Ammon to wait as I pushed open the white picket gate of the church’s headquarters. The two-story brick building was nothing particularly grand, but its position directly across from the growing Temple marked its importance.
Ammon collapsed onto the bench near the road. “I’ll be waiting here.” Like his ancient scriptural namesake, he was ever dutiful. With one last glance over at the Temple, the pumping center of my world, I walked silently toward the door.