Under My Neighbor's Roof: A Mormon Blog Novel

The new ending is here!

2011-10-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

I finished the new ending. *applause* It only took me a year and a half to write four more chapters. Sorry about that. I hope you enjoy it.

The first scene in Chapter 84 is new, and you need to read it because it sets up the ending. I also added a comment here and there throughout the book about the ward's topography. What you need to know is that if you go up the street all the characters live on, and turn right, you're in a cul-de-sac of big homes that was built on a steep hillside during the housing boom. I revised Chapter 90 (which used to be the last chapter). Once you get to the bottom of Chapter 90, click on "next post" and that will take you to the rest of the ending. I fiddled with the posting dates to keep the book together sequentially. Chapter 94 is the final chapter now.

The book finally also has a title: "Under My Neighbor's Roof." That fits the tone of the book a lot better.

You know where I got the idea for the structure of this book? From watching LOST. I thought it was fascinating to see how the characters' behavior was affected by their backstory and how their storylines wove together. I didn't care as much about the island's mysteries as about how peoples' past affects their present. I enjoyed exploring that theme in this novel.

Most of the dramatic events in the novel occurred before the novel even started. I didn't use flashbacks. The exact way the event happened wasn't nearly as important as the way the characters interpreted and remembered the event. By listening to the way the character recounted the event, we learned how that event affected them, rather than just what happened.

Thanks again for reading. All of you were great motivation, and I appreciated your comments and encouragement. I'm not writing anything right now. I have three tiny boys who have first claim on my time. But ideas keep bubbling up anyway and I keep jotting them down. We'll see what happens in the next few years.

Love you all,
Melinda

Update about how there is nothing new

2011-08-25T17:52:00.001-07:00

I doubt there is anyone still checking in. But anyway. No new ending yet. I actually did write a couple more chapters, but it still isn't finished. My writing time is non-existent. I just wanted to have a post on this blog that is newer than a year old.

Author's Note

2010-07-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hi, anyone who is still checking in occasionally. My baby is two months old, and slept through the night last night! Woo! That means I can make an attempt to write regularly again.

I've already rearranged the first several chapters. The comment I heard most frequently about the book's beginning was that it was difficult to remember who was who. I introduced too many characters at once. So I switched things around to start off each character with an entire chapter instead of the short vignettes.

I'm hoping to rewrite the ending by the end of the summer. That depends on my baby napping at the right time, so I can get some uninterrupted writing time. But I looked at the ending again, and you all were very nice not to tell me how anti-climactic it was.

Also, I'm going to leave this as an online novel. I've looked at a bunch of different publishers, and it just doesn't fit any publisher's requirements. Just thought I would let you know I'm not going to take it down after all. I've got another novel that I shelved several years ago that I will dust off and try to get published through a traditional route.

Hope you all are having a wonderful summer!

Guest Post

2010-04-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

A reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent in her thoughts about the book. Thanks for writing up your ideas, and if anyone else would like to submit something, please send it to me at thejellobelt at gmail dot come.

I noticed throughout the book that I could see myself in almost every character in The Jello Belt. Because her storyline didn’t end on a positive note, I have been thinking about Carly a lot. My mom has some narcissistic tendencies that I also saw in Carly. Her self-worth seems to be strongly linked to how successful her mom and siblings think her children are. I care less about what my family members think of my children, possibly because they are still in elementary school, but I do care. To some extent all mothers care about how successful their children are, don’t they? Talk for a minute with a mother whose child has been incarcerated and the grief and embarrassment they feel says it all. But I think Carly takes it a bit further than just “wanting” her children to succeed. Her parents’ treatment of Suzanne makes Carly’s perfection (as a person and as a mother) more closely linked to survival. She doesn’t just think it would be nice for Danna to wear the green twinset to Thanksgiving dinner, she fears her parent’s reaction enough that she is willing to leave Danna home alone on Thanksgiving rather than give her parents an opportunity to find Carly lacking. I agree that an entire book could be written about Carly and the trouble that narcissism causes. My older brother has narcissistic tendencies like my mom. Maybe he doesn’t yell as much, but he is very controlling and worries about how his children make him look. So far, his kids haven’t rebelled, but it could get tricky down the road. Carly’s “what an opportunity for me” approach to seeing Amanda’s name on her VT route made me giggle. I have seen that attitude in members and missionaries who don’t consider the feelings of less-active members and non-members when they do missionary work. It’s more like “If so-n-so attends church, I’ll get a gold star!” The Amandas of the world are right to bristle and I loved Amanda’s reaction to Carly, the visiting teacher.

I can relate to Amanda’s feelings of exhaustion with Church membership. I can really get myself worked up over things sometimes. My latest tirade (yes, “tirade” is unfortunately the right word) sounds something like this: “So because I have a testimony of the Gospel I need to spend all my free time making pinewood derby cars?!?” I realize I’m not the most fun person on the planet, and I would prefer a weekend of relaxing at home to one spent adventuring. So I know people disagree with me, but I think there is a lot of fluff surrounding Church membership--scouting, youth dances, ward activities. Add callings and visiting/home teaching and it gets super busy. I had a ward member tell me that her non-member neighbor observed; “I would never join a church that took me away from my home as often as your church demands that of you.” *jump* off of soapbox. . . I think coming from a pushy Carly-esque family, brief inactivity is healthy, like you said about Danna. I didn’t ever leave the Church, but did ruffle feathers. I dated people not of my race, joined the opposing political party, and moved away from home. I’m rooting for Amanda and Brandon! Brandon appreciated that Tracy didn’t put a fancy card on the plate of cookies and thought maybe Tracy wasn’t so bad.

If only members could treat investigators and less-active members more like Tracy does. Her honesty is refreshing. I couldn’t really relate to Tracy’s struggles, although I am sure my head will also swirl when my kids start pining away for members of the opposite sex. I felt like I learned a lot from Tracy’s character. Between Tracy, Brian, and the Segullah blogs, I have come to better understand depression. Before reading this, I hadn’t given it much thought. I have extended family members who struggle with depression, so learning more about depression was a good thing for me. I still don’t know exactly how to talk to someone who has lost a loved one to suicide (a reality for extended family and ward family members) but I am more empathetic about it now.

I saw a lot of myself in Maria because she also deals with what I’m dealing with, or I should say not dealing with. It was upsetting for me to read those history-clearing chapters. I was actually disappointed to learn about Brian’s childhood and depression because, up until that point, I was all set to read about how Maria dealt with it and copy her response in my home. Maybe a 12-step program is in our future as well. . .

I wonder how I’d feel about Nicole’s storyline if I hadn’t lived it. Early in my career as a stay-at-home mom, I had her attitude. I was immature. I do like that Nicole will volunteer as a nurse. I think moms who have time to excel at something other than homemaking don’t mind the homemaking so much. Motherhood and running a household isn’t nearly as glamorous as I thought it’d be when I was a Mia Maid. I was watching a PBS show about early pioneers and learned that it was common to find a kitchen full of dirty dishes in frontier log cabins that had been abandoned. Frontier life was a time in history when women needed to handle all aspects of home life themselves, without help from extended family members, maids, nannies, servants, or slaves. And almost all stay-at-home parents still live that way today—as chief cook and bottle washer.

I’m rereading the book and found this amazing insight today in the chapter where Tracy is decorating for the ward Christmas activity:

"I wonder how Mary felt about laying the Son of God in a manger," Alicia Shaw said, adding another handful of hay to the manger.

"I would have been embarrassed that I didn't have anything better for him," Tracy said.

Alicia nodded. "That's how I would have felt. But you know what? I believe God planned it this way. He wanted his Son born into a rough, dirty situation. Christ makes his own glory. If Mary and Joseph had been rich, and had been able to welcome him with kingly splendor, then we would try and do the same thing. We would try to make everything glorious before we welcomed him in, but that isn't the way he works. He takes our rough, dirty situations, and uses his glory to transform it. That way we know the glory comes from him and not from us. No one is any better than a filthy feed trough until the Son of God arrives."

A wonderful book about humanity! Everyone carries burdens that Christ is willing to bear.

About Carly

2010-04-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I can identify with Carly. I've never gotten that bad, but I sure hated to be wrong, and I thought people ought to cooperate with what I wanted them to do because I was right. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is on a spectrum, meaning you can have some of the narcissistic traits without being bad enough to be diagnosed as having the disorder. Since we live in a selfish society, I'd be surprised if most people don't have some narcissistic traits, even if they are fairly mild. Normal people tend to outgrow them.

A person with a normal, healthy self-esteem can admit to being wrong and apologizing. She recognizes that making mistakes is part of life, and she isn't unduly harsh with herself or others about them. She can see her connection with others, and doesn't have unrealistic expectations for herself or others. Her realism and acceptance spring from a belief that she's basically a good person who deserves to be treated with respect, and that she ought to treat other people with respect.

Carly, on the other hand, is so afraid of her own worthlessness that she cannot ever make a mistake. Narcissism's arrogance is a cover for the suffocating shame of not being perfect. One mistake would uncover the fact that she doesn't deserve a second chance. She puts as much distance as possible between herself and that one fatal mistake. She's perfect. She requires perfection in others. One mistake exposes someone else's worthlessness, which makes her better by comparison. Since she expects to be rejected for one mistake, she rejects others for one mistake. Narcissists are not forgiving people because they do not expect to be forgiven.

Here is the scripture that describes Carly:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 1 Cor. 13:1-3.

Carly does not have charity. I find it fascinating that this scripture describes various spiritual traits, such as prophesying and faith, as well as giving to the poor and even becoming a martyr, and insists it is possible to do all these things and still not have charity. Ordinarily, someone who can prophesy, understand the mysteries, donates everything to the poor and eventually gives up their life as a martyr is spiritually impressive. And yet you can do all that and still be nothing, if you don't have charity.

Charity is the "pure love of Christ." Moroni 7:47. Now, that has to be something different than having enough faith to move mountains, and enough good works to give all your goods to the poor, and enough dedication to die a martyr's death. Pretty wild that God requires even more than that.

I don't believe charity can be demonstrated as a checklist of activities at all. I've concluded that charity is the ability to love unconditionally, and accept unconditional love. Both aspects have to be present, or it isn't charity. Someone who has charity accepts God's unconditional love. There is no way to earn God's love; it's a gift. Carly was always trying to earn God's love by doing everything right. She rejected charity in favor of earning God's approval.

Carly can only love conditionally. She withholds love until people measure up to her standards. That's not one bit Christlike. She's using love to manipulate people into meeting her expectations. God doesn't do that. He loves us regardless of whether we keep the commandments or not.

Charity is loving others unconditionally. It's learning how to love other people the way God loves us. That's why we have to accept God's unconditional love for us. If we don't believe all the way down to our core that God loves us unconditionally, how can we possibly love someone else unconditionally? God has to teach us how to love that way.

The only way to receive and feel that sort of love is to pray with all the energy of heart for it. That's the only task on the checklist – pray and ask for it. It's a gift. You can't get it any other way.

Bibliography

2010-04-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am not a social worker or therapist. I read a lot of books, and am curious about motivations and relationship dynamics. If you are interested in reading more about the personalities and problems illustrated in The Jello Belt, I recommend the following books:

Why is it Always About You? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism, by Sandy Hotchkiss, LCSW (Free Press) 2002. Carly Simmons has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It isn't a mental illness; it's a dysfunctional way of seeing yourself and relating to others. There are several different combinations of problems that are classified as narcissism. I gave Carly two main characteristics from the seven listed in this book: (1) She is incapable of recognizing or acknowledging that she is wrong; and (2) She is incapable of seeing other people as real individuals who are just as important as she is – instead people are merely props in her life. There's a full essay on Carly coming in my next post.

The Right to Innocence: Healing the Trauma of Childhood Sexual Abuse, by Beverly Engel, M.F.C.C. (1990). Brian's problems and journey towards recovery came from the information in this book. The most surprising part of this book, for me, was the information about how a family typically reacts to someone claiming incest occurred. The reaction of Brian's family (complete denial) is actually not out of the ordinary, although there are occasional families willing to accept the truth and help the victim.

The Heart of Addiction, by Lance Dodes, M.D. (Harper Collins 2002). This book explains the psychology underlying addiction. According to the author, it isn't the substance that causes the addiction, i.e., not everyone who sees porn becomes an addict; not everyone who tries cocaine becomes an addict; not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. Instead, it's the addict's need for the substance that causes an addiction. This book explains what that need is. The book doesn't deal with addiction caused by abuse, although I did use the ideas in it to provide a framework for Brian's addiction. Essentially, abuse is simply a more intense trigger for addiction than the more prosaic situations that Dr. Dodes describes. If you know an addict and you're tearing your hair out wondering why someone would do something so destructive, you ought to read this book. It won't solve the addiction, but it will tell you why they're doing it.

Anatomy of Anorexia, by Steven Levenkron (2001). Stephanie Simmons is bulimic, not anorexic. I borrowed the psychological pressure that contributed to her eating disorder from this book. Eating disorders share many underlying motivations with addictions.

The Emotionally Abusive Relationship, by Beverly Engel (2002). Carly Simmons is emotionally abusive towards her family. Or if you think "emotional abuse" is a foggy, touchy-feely term, let's just say she's unrealistic and dense, and it's causing problems in her family. See especially chapter 8, about how certain personality disorders simply create an abusive atmosphere because the person is incapable of relating to other people in a healthy manner.

The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. (Harper Collins 1985). This book is about setting boundaries in relationships. It doesn't deal with abuse or addiction, but is aimed at relationships where both parties are rational and can control their behavior. Amanda Grayson's conflict with her mother are the sort of issues this book helps with.

I Don't Have to Make Everything All Better, by Gary and Joy Lundberg (2000). This book is about listening to people without fixing their problems, and then letting them fix their own problems. If Brandon's father had used the listening and validating techniques in this book, Brandon might not have quit Church. Or he might have quit anyway. Brandon is an adult with a chip on his shoulder, and his parents aren't to blame for his decisions.

Codependent No More, by Melody Beattie (Hazelden Foundation 1987). Maria Anderson did not end up nearly as codependent as she should have after living with an abusive husband who was also an addict for so many years. Maria was actually quite healthy emotionally, other than a tendency to cover up her husband's problems and confusion about her feelings. Most women in her situation would likely have much deeper issues. Anyone married to someone with a really stubborn problem (abuse, addiction, mental illness), can develop codependent thoughts and actions.

I don't have a book to recommend about rape recovery, Tracy's storyline. I interviewed the director of a Rape Crisis Center. She explained why women frequently blame themselves for being raped. She also told me that it can take women years to recover fully. Tracy's twenty-year healing process is on the long end of the spectrum. Not all rape victims take twenty years to recover. But it also isn't unusual for a rape victim to bury the problem for many years before finally dealing with it.

There isn't any one book that addresses Danna's character and problems. Her response to the sexual assault came from both the interview with the director of the Rape Crisis Center, and The Right to Innocence. Danna also has some co-dependent traits developed in response to her emotionally abusive mother. I also started a book about the children of narcissists called Trapped in the Mirror: Adult Children of Narcissists in Their Struggle for Self, by Elan Golomb (1995), but it was so bleak I couldn't finish it. None of the people in the case studies got better. Ack.

It would have been nice if Danna could have rejected her mother's bizarre ideas and developed healthy faith and attitudes, but it wouldn't have been realistic. Danna is only a teenager. It's going to take an adult perspective and distance to fully separate her mother's values from her own. As Trapped in the Mirror illustrates, even adults aren't always successful in rejecting a parent's harmful attitudes. Danna's departure from the Church is actually a step in the right direction because it will give her the distance to relearn what real faith is. Stephanie isn't going to leave the Church; she's going to adopt her mother's version of it. The seeds are there for Danna's redemption, but these things take time and maturity.

I'll write a sequel in a few years.

I tried to come up with a few paragraphs about what writing this book meant for me, and they all sounded lame. I can't write insightful non-fiction essays. That's why I wrote a novel instead of an ordinary blog.

I've got one more post about Carly, and then I'm taking maternity leave, and letting my carpal tunnel symptoms fade. Does anyone want to write a post about their thoughts on The Jello Belt? Pretend it's a book club discussion. You can send it to me at thejellobelt at gmail dot com and I'll post it (we'll stick to the Mondays and Thursdays publishing schedule since everyone is used to it).

I'll keep you updated on getting this published as a book. That's a slooooow process, and this book isn't exactly the genre and type that is going to be snapped up by a publisher. If I can't get it published through ordinary channels, I'll self-publish it. Eventually it will be a book. However, that means I'm going to take the book off the website, since I doubt a publisher will think it's a selling point to have the entire text available for free on the Internet. Please don't try to download it, copy it, or print it before then. I do have a copyright on the text, and I promise to get it to you in book format eventually. Besides, it's 500 pages. That's an entire ream of paper. Don't do that to your printer!

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 94

2010-04-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

The second time Brian came home, he brought Ruth with him.

"Mom!" Ruth shouted. "Dad wants you! He's outside!"

Maria stuck her head and her flashlight out the front door.

"Can you get my bathrobe? I'll leave my muddy things in the garage," Brian said.

"I can't open the garage door with the power out," Maria said.

"Oh." Brian looked around. "I guess I could risk undressing out here. It's not like anyone can see me."

Maria got Brian his bathrobe and a towel, handed it to him on the front porch, and went back inside. She almost laughed, but not quite, when the power came back on and she heard Brian yelp and dash in the house as the porch light turned on. Part of her recognized that something really funny had happened, but she felt so morose that even her smiles felt fake.

Brian came in laughing. "Murphy's Law guaranteed that the power would come back on right at that moment!" Her father laughed with him.

"I'm going to put these in the washing machine," Brian said, waving a towel full of clothes.

"Did you put it on the heaviest cycle with the second rinse?" Maria asked him when he came back from the laundry machine.

"Yes, and added extra detergent," he said.

"Dad rescued Brother Benton!" Ruth said. "He, like, had to carry him into the house and he was almost fainting with the pain. Jayden was all, like, jumping on him, and then . . ."

"Why don't you let your dad tell the story?" Maria snapped.

Ruth faltered and fell silent.

Brian ruffled Ruth's hair. "That's about all that happened. Jason was up on the hillside. Kevin Daley got him out of the mud and we brought him home. Brandon looked at his knee and said he'll be okay. He's probably going to hurt for a week or so. Maybe Ruth and Abby can go help out with Jayden and Carson after school for the next few days."

"Yeah, we can do that!" Ruth said.

"All right. That's great. Is everything else okay?" Maria asked, feeling guilty about being snappy.

Noah came down the stairs in his Mater pajamas. "Mom, my lights turned on."

"Oh, they did. Let's go get you back to bed," Maria said. She left Ruth and Brian downstairs talking to her father about the evening.

After tucking Noah back in, she looked in Hannah's room. She was fast asleep. She looked so peaceful. It tore at Maria's heart. She sat down on the edge of Hannah's bed, reaching out to stroke her hand. Tears started leaking out of her eyes. She hadn't even known that she wanted to cry.

Hannah's baptism had been so sweet. Her fresh-faced little eight-year-old in her new white dress with the satin sash and lace edging; the way she clung to Brian's hand; her damp, combed hair under the weight of all those hands on her head as they confirmed her a member of the Church and told her to receive the Holy Ghost. Maria had felt so much peace and hope. And now she was sobbing.

She walked softly out of Hannah's room and shut herself in the bathroom to finish crying. She didn't know how to be Hannah's mom, or Danna's Young Women's President, or Brian's wife. Nothing in her life made sense right now. But she needed to put on her happy face, or at least her normal face, because mothers aren't supposed to fall apart. She blew her nose, splashed water on her face, and went back out to her family.

Brian was recounting the evening. It didn't seem fair that he could have a heroic and dramatic evening after everything he'd done to her. She felt so guilty about being petty and jealous about an experience that obviously had been important and positive for him. She wished he was miserable. Except she hadn't felt that way earlier this evening when he'd left. She'd been delighted that he was going out to help a neighbor.

Wait ten minutes, and your feelings will completely change again, she told herself.

Several days later, Brian and Maria pulled up in front of a Stake Center. The early evening light revealed a parking lot with about two dozen cars. Maria saw a man carrying a book going into the Stake Center by himself. Behind him, a husband and wife walked in together, each carrying their own books. They were holding hands.

Maria got out of the car and walked ahead of Brian. She didn't want to hold his hand. If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have to be here at all. Sure, she'd called and asked about the support group for wives of porn addicts, and intended to attend whether Brian came or not, but it was his fault she had to make that phone call. She should be home with her kids, enjoying a nice evening without any of the stress and mood swings that came along with finding out your husband used porn. Oddly, her emotions had gotten even more tumultuous over the months as Brian made progress towards quitting porn. He was getting happier, and it was making her crazy. He ought to suffer more, like her.

She should have made him come alone. It was the chance to talk to other women about her problems that drew her. If only there was one place where she could drop the façade and be honest, she could handle the rest of her life. Maybe the other women were here for noble reasons, like helping their husbands quit porn, but that's not why she was here. She was craving someone else's understanding.

They got into the Stake Center without holding hands, although Brian did hold the door for her. He looked at her anxiously, and she refused to look back. She didn't care if he worried. She was mad at him, and he ought to be worried.

They heard a burst of feminine laughter, and Maria looked around, startled. There was a sign on the door labeling it the Women's Support Group. But they were laughing. They sounded like they were attending an ordinary Relief Society meeting.

"I'll meet you here in the hallway afterward," Brian said, and continued down the hall towards another room.

Maria walked into the room, wondering when the wives of porn addicts would show up. These women must be friends or helpers who had normal, righteous husbands.

A tall, beautiful woman with a radiant smile approached her. "Hi, is this your first week? My name is Amy. What's your first name?"

"I'm Maria. Yes, this is my first week," Maria answered. "I've known about my husband's addiction since last December, but this is our first time at a meeting."

"You must be having a hard year," Amy said. "I remember finding out. My husband confessed he'd been using porn for our entire marriage. Two days later I was in one of these meetings. That was about a year and a half ago."

Her husband was a porn addict? "But you're happy," Maria blurted out.

There was a round of friendly laughter. "Not the first week!" someone else said.

"Well, I guess if it's just the one week!" Maria said lightly, and laughed too. And then her smile broke, her faith couldn't be happy anymore, and she started to cry.

Amy hugged her, and someone else pressed some tissues into her hand. "We've been there, Maria, we understand. You don't have to pretend it's all right because it isn't. But you're going to be just fine."

Chapter 93

2010-04-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

Jason Benton knew the slope was unstable several seconds before it gave way. He was slopping down the hillside as fast as he could when the rumble turned into a roar and the ground under his feet started to move. He tried to run with it and stay on top. If this mud buried him, he'd suffocate. His foot hit a rock on the retaining wall, and the mud yanked his other foot out from under him. Pain engulfed his knee as it twisted.

He spit out several four-letter words, and then the mud swept him right into a tree. It was just a sapling, but it gave him something to climb. Jason got his arms as high up the branches as he could, and tried to lever himself out of the mud. The tree started leaning from Jason's weight and the mud.

The mud stopped moving. "I'm sorry about all that swearing, Heavenly Father. Thanks for the tree," Jason said. He pulled at the branches, but the mud was clinging to his legs and he couldn't get free. He couldn't hear anyone else; just the rain.

"Help!" he hollered. "Help!"

No one answered. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. The pain in his knee was gone in the adrenaline rush. He wanted to get out of the tree before he could feel his knee again.

"Hey!" he yelled again.

Through the dimness, he could see small flashlight beams bobbing, but their light couldn't reach him. He heard someone yell, and he yelled back.

"Hang on!" someone yelled.

"Well, yeah," Jason said.

It seemed like forever before a flashlight beam came closer, but when it did, it was suddenly a lot closer. They weren't excavating the mud; somehow they were putting a bridge over the top. "Are you all right?" someone yelled.

"I blew out my knee! And I can't get my legs out of the mud! I'm holding on to the tree!" Jason yelled back.

"We're getting another board!" the person yelled.

Jason put his head down and concentrated on breathing. A dull ache started up Jason's leg. A huge smack sounded right next to him, making the mud vibrate, and then a flashlight was shining right on him.

"Put some men on the other end so this thing doesn't over-balance," Kevin Daley ordered. "Hold the flashlight."

Kevin reached out both hands to Jason.

"I'm stuck in the mud," he said as he wrapped both hands around Kevin's wrists and felt Kevin do the same to him.

"It's solid mud; it isn't as liquid as you think it is. If you can get one leg free, you can pull yourself out. Which leg is your good leg?" Kevin said.

"My left leg," said Jason.

"Take it slow," Kevin said.

For Jason, the next few minutes lasted an eternity as he alternated pulling and resting with Kevin. Every so often he heard Kevin pass an order back over his shoulder, but he was too exhausted to understand what he was saying.

At last he got his left knee on the board and managed to pull his injured leg free. Pain flared out from his knee as he yanked his foot out. He collapsed face down and let the rain muffle the sound of a couple sobs of relief. That had been a lot harder than he was ever going to admit to anyone.

"I'm fine, just give me a minute," he said when Kevin tried to pull him up.

"Lean on me. If you can hop a bit, I can carry you," Kevin answered. "We're on a six foot by ten foot sheet of plywood, so you've got some room to wobble around."

Jason nodded and let Kevin pull him up, slinging his arm over Kevin's shoulder. He hopped and gasped his way down the first sheet of plywood. At the gap before the next sheet of plywood, another man reached out to almost carry him across. On the other side of that sheet of plywood, two more men formed a seat with their arms and carried Jason out of the shallow mud and stopped on the front lawn.

Someone wrapped a blanket around him and Jason clutched it to his shoulders.

"Do we call an ambulance?" someone said.

"No, it's just my knee. Nothing's broken. Take me home. My wife's a nurse," Jason said. He wanted to hear Nicole yell at him for being so stupid, because that would mean he was going to be fine. If it was a serious injury, she'd be really nice to him.

"Put an arm around my neck, and the other one around his neck," someone said. Jason looked to both sides and saw his neighbors, Brandon and Brian, bending down to him. They linked arms behind his knees and behind his back and lifted him up. "Let's get you home."

Brandon helped load his injured neighbor, Jason, into the back of a pickup truck because that was the vehicle least likely to jostle his leg. He accepted another blanket from a man in the darkness and put it behind Jason's back.

"Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten," he told Jason.

"What's ten?" Jason said through clenched teeth as the truck started to move.

"You'd trade your firstborn child for a shot of morphine," Brandon answered.

"Four," Jason said.

"That's all?"

"I like Jayden."

The truck stopped in front of the Benton's house. Brandon and Brian eased Jason out of the truck. A teenage boy whose name Brandon couldn't remember ran ahead of them and pounded on the door.

Brandon and Brian reached the porch just as the door swung open. It was Amanda.

"What are you doing?" she asked them.

"Jason got hurt when the entire hillside slid off the mountain and into the Baker's backyard. We're bringing him home," Brandon said. He was glad to see her there, and felt guilty that he hadn't once wondered how she was doing this evening.

Her eyes went wide and she stepped out of the way. Behind her, several people jumped up.

Brandon squinted at the light in the living room. The faint blue glow of the LED lantern wasn't bright, but it cast considerably more light than the occasional flashlight. He and Brian moved towards the couch.

"Don't you dare!" ordered Nicole. "Stop right there!" She ran upstairs with a flashlight.

Bewildered, Brandon and Brian stopped, still supporting Jason, who tried putting some weight on his right leg and then picked his foot back up.

"Daddy!" Jayden shouted, making a beeline for Jason and hugging his legs before anyone could stop him.

"Hi there, sport," Jason said with a gasp. "Were you good for mommy?"

"No," said Jayden. He let Brian pull him around to hug Jason's left leg.

Nicole ran back downstairs with an arm full of bedding. "Can you take his pants off?" she asked, tossing a sheet to Amanda, and a blanket at Tracy Nesbitt.

"Uh," Brandon said, glancing sideways at Jason and Brian.

"Never mind. Step on the sheet," Nicole said. "Jayden, let go of daddy's leg, and don't touch anything."

Amanda and Tracy covered the couch with two blankets. Nicole spread another sheet over the carpet. Brandon rolled his eyes. You bring home a woman's crippled husband, and she worried about getting a bit of mud on the furniture. It was just like the time he'd taken that bad spill off his mountain bike on Slickrock Trail in Moab, and Amanda wouldn't drive him to the hospital until she'd put towels down to keep the blood off the seats in her Honda.

Brandon and Brian got Jason arranged on the couch. Jayden climbed up onto his chest and sat down.

Nicole cast disapproving looks at their clothes. Brandon glanced down. He was so wet he was dripping, and caked with mud solidly from the chest down, but they'd been in a rainstorm and a mudslide. What else could you expect?

"Let's take a look at his knee," Nicole said.

"All right," Brandon said, stepping back.

"You do it. I don't want to get covered in mud," Nicole said.

Brandon tried not to be judgmental, but he did give her a look.

"I have to nurse the baby in about twenty minutes, and I don't have time to shower before then," Nicole explained.

"Oh, right." He'd forgotten about the babies. "Where's Sophie?" he asked Amanda.

"Having her first sleepover with Chloe," Amanda said. "They're best friends already."

He smiled and turned back to Jason, who was trying to get Jayden off his face.

"You're going to have to take your pants off after all. I need to see your knee," Brandon told him.

Brian started inching towards the front door, leaving solid footprints of mud on the sheets. "I've got some first aid kits. I'll be back." And he was gone.

"Downstairs, girls," Nicole ordered Abby and Ruth. "Take Carson and Jayden with you."

"I'll come too," Tracy Nesbitt said. She picked up Jayden, who howled at being pulled off his dad.

Brandon turned his back as Jason inched out of his mud-caked pants. Nicole threw him another sheet. After a few minutes, Jason said he was ready.

Nicole held the flashlight while Brandon gently handled his knee.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I was coming down the hillside pretty fast when the mud caught up to me. My foot got stuck on something. It kind of twisted a bit." Jason jumped a bit and grabbed the couch as Brandon swung his leg from side to side.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yeah," Jason said, voice tight.

"Good. It means your collateral ligaments are all still attached. Your cruciate ligaments seem intact too. Are you feeling stabbing pains or a dull ache?"

"Just kind of everything."

"I don't see any discoloration, do you?" Brandon asked Nicole.

"It's hard to tell by flashlight, but it doesn't look like it," Nicole answered.

"Let's wrap it, ice it and elevate it tonight. You need to get into an Instacare tomorrow," Brandon told Jason.

"Let me shower first, and then Nicole can wrap it," Jason said.

Brian Anderson let himself back in the house, carrying a large cardboard box. "Here, I've got some first aid kits. Take whatever you need."

Brandon looked in the box and whistled. "Were they having a sale on first aid kits at Costco or something?"

"Something like that," Brian said.

"Let's wrap it, then you get cleaned up, then you can wrap it in dry bandages. There's no shortage of bandages," Brandon said, picking out several first aid kits. He pulled the Ace bandages out of them and started to wrap Jason's knee.

Someone knocked on the door and then pushed it open.

"Come join the party," Nicole said. "Oh! Hi, bishop!"

"Hi, Nicole. How is Jason?"

"He's going to limp for a couple weeks, but it doesn't look like he did any permanent damage," Brandon answered.

"Glad you were there to help," Bishop Bones answered. "Nicole, let Sister Nixon know what's going on, and the ward can arrange some help with meals and child care. You'll have your hands full with a newborn baby and an injured husband."

Brandon hadn't thought about that. Amanda would rip his head off if he'd gotten injured and couldn't help with the baby. "I can take Jason to the Instacare tomorrow," he offered.

"Thanks, that would be really helpful," Nicole said.

The bishop added his thanks and then said, "when you're done here, could you come look at another injury? Gary Baker felt something pop in his shoulder and he can't move his right arm very much."

"No one else was caught in the mud?" Jason asked.

"Everyone is accounted for. You were the only one that far up on the hillside," the bishop said.

"What were you doing up on the hillside?" Nicole asked Jason.

"Uh, you know," Jason said vaguely.

"I'm done now. I'll go with you," Brandon said, standing up. "Or would you rather go?" Brandon turned to Amanda, who had just come back upstairs after Jayden. Jayden was back on Jason's chest already.

Amanda glanced around. "I'll stay here. Our baby is upstairs." She shrugged.

"Sure, honey." Brandon took more first aid kits from Brian's box and joined the bishop. Bishop Bones swung his Coleman lantern high to illuminate the dark steps.

"How did Gary Baker get hurt?" Brandon asked.

"He was trying to get a box out of their basement, and twisted the wrong way. The mud broke their basement windows and the water is coming in. He wanted to save some of their belongings," Bishop Bones said.

"It was probably a stress injury that got started when he was throwing sandbags," Brandon said. "How bad is the house?"

"The tree that Jason climbed is leaning against the house. That and the broken basement windows seem to be the only damage to the house. Of course, they've got a yard full of six feet of mud too, but at least the house is still on its foundation."

Brandon shook his head in sympathy. Then it hit him that the last time he'd seen the bishop, he hadn't even been civil, refusing to shake the bishop's hand as he stomped out of his office. And with the memory, Brandon's sense of connection and camaraderie from the evening disappeared. He wanted it back.

"Hey, bishop. I'm sorry about the last time I talked to you. I owe you a handshake at least," Brandon said.

"Don't mention it," Bishop Bones said, swinging his Coleman lantern to the other hand to accept the handshake.

And just like that, the fun he was having this evening came back. He grinned in the dark. That wasn't so bad.

"What did you decide to do about your daughter's blessing?" the bishop asked.

"My brother-in-law is going to bless her when he blesses his son," Brandon said.

"All right. We'll make sure you've got all the correct paperwork. Is it coming up soon?"

"No, the baby they're adopting isn't even born yet. Then they have to wait six months," Brandon said.

"I see," the bishop said.

They reached the top of the street and turned the corner into the cul-de-sac.

It was silent between them.

"Hey, bishop, if I come see you again, is there a chance I could bless my baby sometime before then? I mean, if I cancel my registrations on those Internet sites and stuff like that?" Brandon blurted out.

"I think we could work something out," Bishop Bones said.

It was pitch dark, and Brandon couldn't see anything outside the circle of lantern light, but he would have bet good money that the bishop was grinning from ear to ear. Except Mormons don't gamble.

Chapter 92

2010-04-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

Amanda would have been fine with the power outage if it had happened during one of Sophie's rare moments of sleep. She would have happily sat there in the dark as long as the baby wanted to sleep. But Sophie was practically purple with crying.

Amanda didn't dare set the baby down while she got a flashlight. She tucked her into the crook of her arm and made her way cautiously through the dark mudroom to the garage door. She opened the door and groped on the shelf where they kept all their flashlights, willing herself to not think about spiders. The shelf was empty. She reached further back. She touched dust balls, and something wet and slimey, but no flashlights. Had Brandon taken them? She'd seen him pack up a floodlight. If he'd taken the flashlights too, she was going to beat him when he got home.

She slowly stepped back into the kitchen, terrified of tripping on something and dropping the baby. With the baby still screaming in her other arm, she carefully felt around the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard for candles. She found two. She couldn't strike a match while holding a baby. She carried the candles and matches into the family room where she could prop the baby in the corner of the couch while she lit the candles on the coffee table. They were Christmas candles; one was pine-scented and the other was sugar cookie. That would make a nice combination of smells. Between the baby's cries and the heavy perfume of a Salt City candle, she was going to have a headache.

As Amanda blew out the match, Baby Sophie abruptly quit crying and stared with fascination at the flames. Stunned with hope, Amanda moved the candles to be more in the baby's line of sight. Sophie blinked at them. After several minutes of rapt concentration, her eyes drifted shut.

"I never read that idea in a parenting magazine," Amanda said.

She left the infant sleeping on the couch and made her way by candlelight into the front room. The rain had let up momentarily, so she had a clear view of the street, where every light was out. A group of people with flashlights were on the Benton's porch. As Amanda watched, the door opened and they all went inside.

"Party at the Benton's," Amanda said to herself. She would go over as soon as the baby woke up. Amanda wasn't afraid of the dark, but she was miserable staying in a dark house with a crying baby all by herself. Nicole had three kids. She would have some advice, or at least be able to assure her that Sophie would stop crying some day. Amanda went to make sure that there was enough stuff in the diaper bag.

Danna had a flashlight under her bed. She'd taken it from her mom's stash of emergency supplies a few months ago and never returned it. When the power went out, she rolled over and picked it up. She didn't turn it on. If someone saw the light in her room, they might come in.

She laid on her back, smacking the flashlight into her palm, staring at a ceiling she couldn't see in the dark. A lightning flash momentarily lit up her room. She liked it dark.

If she stayed here, her mom would eventually insist they all be in one room so they could use candles instead of wasting flashlight batteries. Mom wouldn't let them take candles into other rooms because they might set the house on fire.

Danna turned her flashlight on to find her jacket. She headed downstairs.

"Where are you going?" Austin asked her as she passed him on the stairs.

"To see what's going on at the Baker's," Danna said.

She ducked out into the night.

Baby Sophie only slept twenty minutes. Amanda suspected she wanted to eat again, but instead she bundled her up to dash across the street. If she stayed home to feed her, then she'd fall asleep and Amanda would be trapped at home without power or any light besides two Salt City Christmas candles.

"Sorry, baby," Amanda said as she slung the diaper bag over her shoulder and flipped the blanket down over Sophie's face. She blew out the candles and headed over to the Bentons. A pale, steady light through the curtains promised better light than she had at home.

She knocked at the door, waited, and was ready to push it open and call 'hello' when Ruth Anderson opened it.

"Oh my heck! Are you all right?! We totally should have checked on you! Are you, like, dying? Can you believe this storm? Me and Abby came over here with Sister Nesbitt to help Sister Benton because Jayden is lost and that baby of hers is just crying and crying and crying. Sister Nesbitt is holding the baby. Do you want to come see Sister Nesbitt? Look, Sister Nesbitt! It's Amanda! And her new baby! Her baby's crying too. Gosh, it's like that's all babies ever do. Does this count as visiting teaching? My mom says I can't be your real visiting teacher until I'm eighteen, but I don't see why. One of our home teachers is only, like, fourteen. Do you want me to hold your baby? That's like service, huh? Oh my heck! She's the cutest thing ever! Look how wide she can open her mouth! It's like half her head is going to fall off or something!"

"Ruth, why don't you go see if Davey and Carson are all right or if they've lost their flashlight," Tracy Nesbitt suggested.

"Do you just want me to go away because I talk too much? My teacher totally does that too," Ruth said, as she handed the baby back to Amanda and picked up a flashlight. "Abby's already down there." Ruth went downstairs.

"I'm already cheered up," Amanda said. "Between Ruth and your battery-operated LED lantern, I can handle anything."

Tracy laughed very softly, so as not to disturb the baby on her shoulder, whose wails were interspersed with a few seconds of sleep.

"Who came in? Is that Jason?" Nicole Benton asked, coming into the living room. "Oh, hi Amanda."

"Sorry it's just me. Brandon took all our flashlights when he went to go help sandbag that one house, and I didn't want to be in the dark all alone," Amanda said.

"I'm glad you came over. Make yourself to home," Nicole said.

"Did Ruth say Jayden is lost?" Amanda asked, shifting her baby to her shoulder. Baby Sophie's bleating cries grew louder.

"Yes. I know he's in the house somewhere, but I can't find him. I've looked under all the beds and couches, and I don't know where else he could be," Nicole said.

"You're sure he didn't try to follow Jason?" Tracy asked.

"I don't know! But if he's out there in that storm, how will I ever find him? He's got to still be in the house. Maybe he's down in the laundry room," Nicole turned to go downstairs.

"Nicole, is there somewhere I can sit and nurse my baby?" Amanda asked.

"Sure, there's a rocking chair in the baby's room. First door on the right."

"Take a flashlight," Tracy said, handing her one from the counter.

Amanda took the flashlight, found the baby's room, set the flashlight upright on the changing table, and pushed her shirt out of the way. Baby Sophie latched on immediately. With the power out, the only sounds were the rain on the roof and the soft click of the baby's swallows. The silence of all manmade things and the odd shadows brought another level of strangeness to this activity that was still so new. She'd given part of her body to grow and feed a child; part of her would always belong to this tiny creature. Sometimes she cherished that feeling. Other times it frightened her.

There was a knock on the wall, and Amanda jumped out of her reverie. Then a heavier thump came through the wall. Her heart sped up, and she wished she'd never watched a horror movie in her entire life. But then she realized what it must be and laughed out loud in relief. Sophie didn't even twitch.

Amanda draped the receiving blanket over her shoulder and the baby's head and heaved herself up from the rocking chair without disturbing Sophie's latch. She pushed open the door and called out for Nicole.

"What is it?" Nicole asked.

"Is there a closet that shares the wall with the baby's room?"

"Yes."

"Did you look there for Jayden? Because someone is knocking on the wall."

Nicole ran up the stairs with her flashlight. Amanda stepped back as she passed, and then followed her. Tracy Nesbitt came up the stairs too. They peeked into the master bedroom.

"Jayden! Jayden! I found you! Honey, you scared mommy! I couldn't find you. Are you all right? Do you want to come out? No? Okay. Can mommy come in and sit by you?" Nicole opened the folding doors for the closet as far as they would go and shoved shoes out of the way. "Do you want to hold mommy's flashlight? Do you want to sit on mommy's lap? Do you want me to tell you a story or sing a song?"

Amanda and Tracy smiled at each other as Nicole's crossed her ankles. Her ankles were all they could see. The rest of her was inside the closet with Jayden.

"That's a relief," Tracy said as they stepped away from the door.

"Is the baby asleep?" Amanda asked.

"Sound asleep," said Tracy.

"Do you need to put her in her crib? We'll be quiet. Sophie will be done in about ten minutes."

"Don't worry about it. She can sleep on me. I'm softer than any mattress," Tracy said.

Amanda returned to the rocking chair as Tracy went downstairs. She burped Sophie and then put her on the other side. The silence enveloped her again, only now it had the thin sounds of song threaded through it. Nicole was singing to Jayden. The wall muffled the words, but Amanda could identify the tune. Singing "I Am a Child of God" was like riding a bike; once you learned it as a child, you could never forget.

She picked up the words and sang them softly to Sophie. "Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way."

Sophie fell off Amanda's breast, full and sleeping. "Teach me all that I must do," Amanda sang in a whisper. Was there anything in the world more contented than a sleeping newborn with a milk drop nestled in the corner of her mouth?

"To live with him someday."

"Bishop! Where do they need me?" Jason Benton said, shovel in hand, as he made his way into the Baker's crowded backyard.

"I don't know, I just got here too," the bishop replied. He was holding up a Coleman lantern. A few flashlight beams bobbed around the yard. The only other light was the occasional lightning flash; the rain was coming down hard again. "There's Gary," the bishop nodded towards the hillside.

Jason stayed with the bishop as they made their way close enough to overhear the loud conversation the homeowner, Gary Baker, was having with Kevin Daley, the landscaper who was directing the sandbagging.

"If we could use my equipment, I'd say yes," Kevin was shouting over the noise of the storm. "But if we try to shovel out a channel for the water on the hillside, the entire ward is going to rupture a disc."

"Not all the water is going into the sandbag river," Gary objected. "It's coming over the rest of the retaining wall. It doesn't have to be a deep channel, just something to direct the water towards the sandbags. We can use the priests and teachers. They've got young backs."

Kevin shook his head. "Let's get a line of sandbags around your patio. The sandbag river is keeping most of the water out of your yard; let's focus on keeping the rest of it out of your house."

"I've got a shovel," Jason offered. "I can go see if we can shovel some mud around up there." He nodded towards the hill.

"Take a couple priests. Parker, Brock and Ross are right there," Gary Baker said, turning his back on Kevin.

"We'll just take a look, Kevin," Jason said.

"I wouldn't send employees to do it; my workers' comp premiums would skyrocket after all the claims," Kevin said.

"We'll stop if we're going to get hurt," Jason promised. He wasn't going to stand around the yard and wait for a chance to get close enough to the truck to get his hands on a sandbag. It looked like half the Elder's Quorum was here, and more coming. If he didn't grab an assignment, he'd end up standing in the rain until he went home without doing anything.

"Come on, guys, let's go dig some mud," Jason said to the priests.

"Woo!" yelled Brock, and the three of them blew past Jason and leaped up on the retaining wall.

Jason passed Spencer Simmons, who didn't look like he had anything to do either. But he was hanging back, so Jason didn't invite him to come.

Brock reached a hand down to Jason and hauled him up to the top of the retaining wall. At his first step onto the hillside, his food sank deep in the mud and ash. He hoped the laces on his boots held, because this mud could suck his boots right off.

"So what are we doing?" Brock hollered.

"Trying to get the water to flow over there," Jason said, pointing towards the pile of sandbags in the east corner of the yard.

Brock looked at the sandbags, at the hill, and back at Jason. "What? We're digging a canal?"

Now that he was away from the bishop's Coleman lantern, Jason could barely see. The hillside was a solid mass of mud, blackened by a top layer of ash. The idea of digging a channel to divert the water anywhere seemed futile. "Why don't you guys get back down in the yard and see if there's one spot where most of the water is coming over the wall. That will give us one location to work on instead of the entire hill."

Parker, Brock and Ross jumped down and disappeared into the darkness and rain. Jason took another step in the clutching mud, and pushed his shovel into the muck.

Danna Simmons hunched deeper into the hood of her jacket, hands shoved into her pockets. She looked around at all the people in the yard. The collective boots of the ward were churning the Baker's lawn into mush. A line of sandbags ran right through a rock-edged flowerbed and sent water cascading down a terraced rock garden and into another flowerbed. Idiots. They didn't have to ruin the flowerbeds. If they'd moved the sandbags two feet to the left, the perennials would have survived.

She stepped onto the sandbags and directed her flashlight beam towards the aster being crushed under the two sandbags stacked opposite hers. It was still flowering; a few blooms stubbornly clinging to the stems in the few inches of muddy water rushing down to the rocks below. The sandbag was on the branches and foliage, not the bush's trunk. If she could push the sandbag off the foliage, the plant would be able to heal.

Danna shoved her flashlight into her pocket and bent to the top sandbag. Its weight pulled her off-balance and she ended up with both feet in the water to avoid a fall. The water instantly seeped through her sneakers. She reached again for the top sandbag and pulled it away from the plant and into the river. It rolled and wedged against her foot. She tugged her foot free and wiggled her fingers under the far side of the bottom sandbag. It was too heavy. She could push it, but not lift it. Pushing the sandbag off the branch would strip off the foliage.

A sudden glare from a flashlight illuminated her section of the river.

"What are you doing?" someone shouted at her.

"The sandbag is right on the aster," Danna shouted back, "I'm moving it."

The man grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the river. "Don't mess with it. No one cares about the flowers right now."

Danna shook him off. "Well, they should! Leave me alone. It's none of your business." She stepped back into the filthy river.

The man muttered at her and moved off.

Danna tried several different ways to move the sandbag off the plant, but she didn't have enough strength in her arms to pick up the sodden sandbag without damaging the plant further. Frustrated, she kicked it. The water suddenly crested and soaked the bottom three inches of her jeans. She slipped and regained her balance. Stupid plant. She'd ruined her shoes and hadn't done any good at all. She just wanted to go home.

When Danna tried to step out of the river, the mud sucked at her foot and she stumbled and flailed wildly. The water was now running much higher, or she was sunk deeper, because her pants were wet halfway to her knees. Water flowed over the single sandbag she couldn't move, pouring directly onto the aster. The plant probably would have survived the sandbag on its branches, but having gallons of water channeled onto it would bare the rootball and kill it for sure.

Now she was stuck, and the plant was worse off than when she'd started. She wanted help to get out of the river. But no one was there anymore.

Alone, dirty, and angry at the futility of her efforts, she yanked herself out of the river and squelched home.

"Where do you want this one?"

Brian turned and saw Tom Nesbitt holding one side of a sandbag. His son, John, was holding the other end. Brian pointed. "Start putting a second layer on the bags around the patio."

Tom and John heaved together and the bag landed with a heavy, wet smack.

"Come on, let's get Derek's truck out of here."

"Dad, I'm going over there," John pointed towards the hillside. "Maybe they need help."

Tom looked around but John had already disappeared into the dark. "Let's go, Brian."

Brian joined the men who were pushing and heaving at Derek Snyder's pickup, which was stuck in the lawn. Emptied of its load of sandbags, it lifted easily out of the muck. Derek waved from the front seat, next to a couple of priests. "We'll go see if there are any sandbags left in the city park and be right back," he shouted. The truck left deep, muddy wheel tracks in the Baker's lawn as it bounced down the incline and out into the street.

With the sandbags gone, the men congregated around the sandbag river line. Brian and Tom yanked a couple of bags back into place. Brian could see a few of the men walking down the street, heading home, but most of them stayed. Brian looked around for something else to do.

A rumble of sustained thunder came from under his feet. Brian had just enough time to wonder why thunder was coming from the ground instead of the sky when he heard someone yell, "Run! The entire hillside's coming down! Run!"

The air was so thick with water that the earth flow seemed to compress the available air space and Brian could sense the mud moving in the air, against his skin and eardrums. The weird pressure of sodden earth, unstoppable and implacable, searching for a level place to rest, pushed him along.

They reached the street, and Brian sensed that the movement behind him had stopped. He turned and shone his flashlight towards the backyard. The beam illuminated the rain for a couple yards, and then was swallowed up by the blackness.

"Did it reach the house?" he wondered aloud.

"Where's John? Did you see John?" Tom Nesbitt shook Brian's arm, then moved past him without waiting for an answer. "Has anyone seen my son?" he bellowed.

It took a few seconds for the men to shake off the shock of the mudslide and start looking at each other, mentally tallying who was in the street and trying to remember who they couldn't find.

Brian caught up with Tom's flashlight and started yelling for John along with him. The smell of mud clogged his nostrils as they got closer to the muck. Brian couldn't see much with just the flashlight, but everything he could see was mud at least three feet thick.

"John!" Tom yelled.

"Dad?" came a faint reply.

"He's over here, Tom," someone called out.

Tom ran and Brian followed him. He shone his flashlight ahead of him and could see the silhouette of a younger boy, with a spiky shape sprouting out of his shoulder.

"John! What have you got?" Tom asked, swinging his son into a huge hug that produced a sound like clanking metal.

"Shovels, dad. I grabbed the shovels," John answered.

"Shovels?"

"Well, yeah. How else are we going to shovel the mud out of the Baker's basement?"

Brian couldn't help it. He laughed. The laughter spread to the other men gathering around them and several of them reached out to ruffle John's soaking hair, or clap him on the shoulder. "That's quite the boy you've got there, Tom," someone said.

"Who else is missing?" someone else asked, and the laughter abruptly ended.

Chapter 91

2010-04-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

"But you just told me to try walking around with her," Brandon objected.

"She's still crying. Maybe she's hungry instead," Amanda said, putting a pillow on her lap and getting ready to feed the baby.

"I've only walked four steps."

"Just give her to me, will you?" Amanda said.

"Fine." Brandon handed their wailing daughter back to his wife.

The baby didn't immediately latch on to Amanda. "See?" Brandon said, "you should have let me walk her longer."

"Like you're the expert?"

No, he wasn't the expert. Amanda was the expert. Brandon was beginning to wonder if a telepathic umbilical cord had replaced the actual umbilical cord at birth, because Amanda always knew exactly what the baby needed and it was never him. He felt a bit of glee that she was wrong this time. Then the baby latched on and began sucking greedily.

"There, angel baby, you just wanted your mommy, didn't you?" Amanda cooed at her, stroking the fuzz on her head.

"First you tell me you need a break from her, then you tell me she wants to eat. I wish you'd make up your mind," Brandon said.

Amanda's eyes filled with tears. "You don't have to get snappy about it."

Great. The baby stops crying, so his wife starts. And it was somehow his fault. Again. "Sorry," he muttered.

Rather than mess up again, he strode out of the family room and into the front living room. A solid cloud cover and steady rain made the late summer day gray and dreary outside the window. He was sick of the rain. He was sick of the baby crying. He was sick of his wife crying. He wanted to do something useful and sweaty and loud, something to burn off all the pent-up energy and good intentions that couldn't make his daughter sleep peacefully or his wife smile. He wanted to go four-wheeling in the mud, or water-skiing, or hiking, or just anything.

He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. The warm wet evening enveloped him, the sound of rain replacing the never-ending colicky cries of his baby. He shoved his hands in his pockets and let the rain beat on his hair and roll down his face.

His neighbor, Brian Anderson, waved at him as he pulled into his driveway next door. Brandon waved back.

Then a blue Ford F350 full of sandbags drove up the street. The significance of that didn't register with Brandon for a couple minutes, and then he felt a leap of excitement.

"Hey, honey!" he said as he went back in the house.

"Ssh!"

"Sorry. Did I wake her up?"

"She's just barely going to sleep."

"I need to go out for a few minutes. I just saw a truck with a load of sandbags head up to that cul-de-sac where they had the fire a couple weeks ago. I'm going to take some stuff and go see if they need help." Brandon was already on his way to the mudroom. He exchanged his shoes for a pair of duck boots and pulled on his Patagonia rain slicker. He grabbed his heavy leather work gloves and headed out to the garage, where he threw a shovel and rake in the back seat of his Blazer. After opening the garage and seeing the falling dusk, he swept the garage shelf clean of flashlights and put them in the front seat. He'd bought a floodlight a couple years ago and never used it. He rooted it out from under some climbing gear and wrapped the orange extension cord into a huge loop and tossed it in the front seat next to all the flashlights.

"You're driving up the street?" Amanda appeared in the doorway.

"I need to take some equipment. We might need it," said Brandon. "You and the baby stay here."

"Well, obviously." Amanda went back in the house and shut the door.

Brandon got in his Blazer and pulled out of the driveway. Then he wondered if he really was going to be able to walk up to total strangers and ask if they needed help. He needed someone who knew the neighbors up the street. He pulled up to the sidewalk and jumped out next door to get Brian Anderson.

He knocked on the Anderson's door and waited. Ruth opened the door.

"Is your dad here?" he asked her.

"Dad!" Ruth yelled. "It's Amanda's husband!"

Brian and Hannah came into the room with an older man with black hair. "Hi, Brandon. This is my father-in-law, Eliott Barrera. He came to town for Hannah's baptism on Saturday. Eliott, this is my neighbor, Brandon."

Brandon shook hands with Eliott, getting antsy and wishing he hadn't wasted the time to stop and get his neighbor. He wouldn't want to come if they had company. "Sorry to bother you. It's probably nothing. But I saw a blue Ford F350 take a load of sandbags up the street. I was going to go help, and wondered if you wanted to ride along. You probably know who needs help better than I do."

Maria came into the living room in time to hear Brandon. "They've had some basements flood down by 1100 South. And I saw an interview on the news with a farmer who had to evacuate his horses when his irrigation ditch flooded his field."

"The city announced on the radio that they have sandbags in Willow Park for anyone who needs to come get them. I saw a blue Ford truck head up the street with a load of sandbags." Brandon was anxious to get back to the reason he was here, not get bogged down in small talk.

"Derek Snyder drives a blue Ford F350. He lives up in that new cul-de-sac next to the Bakers. That wildfire last week burned all the vegetation off the hill. I bet it's shedding water like a duck. Let me get my boots and some work gloves." Brian turned and went down the hall.

"Sorry to interrupt your visit," Brandon said to Brian's father-in-law.

"No trouble," the older man said kindly. "You are a good neighbor."

"How are Amanda and Baby Sophie doing?' Maria asked. Hannah took her mother's hand.

"Better if Sophie would sleep more." Brandon was saved by further small talk by Brian's reappearance. He pulled a worn jacket out of the closet.

"We might be a while," Brian said to Maria.

"We're fine," Maria said.

"Mom, can I call Kennedee and see if she's okay?" Hannah asked.

"The Bakers have enough to do right now. We're not going to bother them. Besides, it's bedtime in half an hour," her mom answered.

Brandon heard Hannah groan in protest as he and Brian headed out the door. Brandon tossed the flashlights and floodlight into the back seat and they climbed in the Blazer. "Did you hear about the flash flooding in Provo Canyon?" he said.

"Is Bridal Veil Falls gone again?" Brian said.

"Not yet," Brandon said. Then he turned the corner and pulled into the cul-de-sac and parked at the curb behind a van.

Brian nodded at the van. "Looks like the Young Men beat us here. That's Ken Holgreen's van. There must be a load of priests around here. Let's go find them."

Brandon got out of the Blazer and flipped his hood up, then back down. The rain had momentarily slacked off. He grabbed two maglights and followed Brian into the backyard of a stuccoed and gabled mini-mansion that had a basketball hoop in the driveway. The blue Ford was parked in the backyard, wheels sunk two inches into the sodden lawn. Up near the back property line, a row of men and older teenage boys were busy stacking sandbags. The rain had brought an early and deepening twilight. Brandon couldn't see the hillside.

"Derek!" Brian called out. Brandon joined him to find out what was going on.

"Hey, Brian! We're losing the retaining wall," Derek said, barely registering their presence.

"Do you need some light?" Brandon asked, and turned on the maglights.

Derek turned and looked at him. "Thanks! Yeah!"

"This is my neighbor, Brandon Grayson," Brian said.

"Derek Snyder," Derek said, shaking Brandon's hand. Brandon returned the handshake. It had been a long time since someone had automatically shaken his hand just for an introduction.

"I've got a floodlight in my car. Do you know where I can plug in an extension cord?" Brandon said.

"How long is your extension cord? I've got exterior outlets facing the Baker's house. Let's get it set up." Derek and Brandon went off together to rig the lighting.

"Brian! Come on!" Brian fell into step as someone tugged on his sleeve. He recognized Kevin Daley, who owned a landscaping company.

"How bad is it?" Brian asked him.

"I'm not going to say a word about people who build on a thirty degree slope," Kevin said. "There's not a flat inch of land between the mountain and the Baker's house."

That was an exaggeration. Brian could see fifteen feet of flat backyard between the retaining wall and the house.

"I can throw sandbags," Brian said. The rain picked back up. He wished he had a hood on his jacket. Instead, the rain ran down his neck. Good thing it was a warm rain.

"You're hired," Kevin said.

Brandon's floodlight came on, and a cheer went up. Brian wished he'd grabbed his Coleman lanterns. He had two stashed away in the camping equipment.

"Stop trying to build a retaining wall out of sandbags," Kevin shouted, and Gary Baker, the homeowner, turned around.

"Where are you sending the water?" Kevin asked. He pointed east. "You're just going to dump it into the Snyder's yard if you can keep it out of your yard. We've got to make a channel to get the water off the mountain and into the storm drain in the street. Look, right here." Kevin indicated a line that would flow from the crumbling retaining wall through the trees and into the front yard, where it could flood the street. "The water's got to go somewhere. Let's get it into the street."

Gary Baker looked overwhelmed. Brian hauled a sandbag off the truck and dumped it along the line Kevin had pointed out. Kevin grabbed a second sandbag. "Let's set up a bucket brigade line and get this river built before the rain gets worse."

The men in the yard began responding to Kevin's authority. Ken Holgreen directed the priests to dismantle the pile of sandbags shoring up the retaining wall and get the line of sandbags started by the hillside while some of the other men joined Brian and Kevin in creating the next section of the river.

Brian found himself as the line's midpoint, receiving a tossed sandbag from one man, then turning to toss it to the man who dropped it onto the sodden ground. At some point he realized the man throwing him sandbags off the truck was Brandon.

"Good call on bringing a floodlight," Brian yelled.

"There's another one," Brandon said, nodding towards the west neighbors, where two more floodlights had just turned on, illuminating the rain against the dark sky. It looked like younger boys holding the floodlights, maybe the Baker's son, Dylan, and another boy his age.

Then there wasn't any more breath for talking. The rain ebbed and flowed on Brian, who was so wet he barely registered when no new rain was coming down. He settled into a rhythm of catch and toss with the rough blow of the sandbag against his biceps and chest creating the momentum he threw back into the sandbag as he heaved it to the third man in the line. The smell of dirt, rain and sand blended with the shouts of the other men in the yard and the occasional crack of thunder. He'd never felt so connected to the world and a community as he did right now, working and sweating to help save his neighbor's house.

"Dude, I want to throw sandbags," John Nesbitt said to Dylan, who was holding the other floodlight.

Dylan stared at him. "Why? They're heavy."

John shrugged, his eyes following his dad, Tom Nesbitt, who was grunting and heaving sandbags into a makeshift riverbank. There was already muddy water streaming into it off the mountain. He aimed his floodlight so his dad could see what he was doing. Someone grabbed his dad's shoulder and pointed to another area. His dad nodded and moved off to start work further down the line. John's floodlight moved with him.

Jayden Benton wasn't afraid of the thunder. It was the lightning that scared him. He clung to his dad and held on harder when dad tried to give him to mom.

"I have to go, Buddy. Brother Fish just called and said they're sandbagging the Baker's house. I won't be very long. You stay here with mom, Carson and the baby, okay? You be a good boy, okay? Dad has to go," dad said, peeling himself out of Jayden's body hug.

Jayden held on tighter. Mom didn't have time to hug him. She had to feed the baby. She always had to feed the baby. Jayden didn’t like the new baby. He wanted his dad, but his dad was pulling his arms away. "No!" he sobbed.

"You stay here and help mom with the baby, okay?" dad said.

Dad finally got Jayden's arms off of him and walked to the door, pulling on a rain slicker and stuffing gloves in his pocket. Jayden cried and ran after him. Mom pulled him back.

"You'll come home if they've got everything under control?" she asked dad, trying to hug Jayden.

"They need my help," dad said.

"We need your help too," mom said. "At least until Carson is in bed. It's so hard with all three of them."

"Yeah, I'll come back if they don't need me," dad said, his eyes sliding away from her. He shut the door behind him.

"Whatever. I'd rather go play in the rain too," mom said. She tried to sit Jayden on her lap, but there wasn't room because the baby was already on mom's lap. Then Carson tried to get on mom's lap too and mom pushed both of them off.

"Do you want to watch Elmo?" she offered.

"Elmo!" Carson said, and ran to the television.

Jayden sat on the couch while mom started the Elmo movie. But then the thunder boomed again. When the lightning lit up all the windows in the house, he ran upstairs and hid in the closet where it smelled like dad.

"Who was that?" Carly Simmons asked her husband when he hung up the phone.

"Brother Fish. He said they're sandbagging the Baker's house and need everyone in the Elder's Quorum who can make it," Spencer said.

"I'll get your gloves for you," Carly said, opening the door to the garage.

It irritated him that she just assumed he was going. There were plenty of other men in the Elder's Quorum who were in a lot better shape than he was. A wet, soggy, unpleasant job like this was better suited to the Young Men. He should have asked Brother Fish if the Young Men were going. They needed more opportunities to learn how to serve.

Spencer opened the hall closet. He had his overcoat he wore to work in the winter, and a light blue parka. He ought to have a waterproof, gray rain slicker like he saw in last month's issue of Outdoor Outfitters. But he didn't. Could he wear a light blue parka to help throw sandbags?

He got the parka out of the closet and shrugged into it. If he didn't go and watch, Carly would nag him. Or maybe she wouldn't. She hadn't said much to him since he'd blown up at her last week. The silence was nice. He could stay home, and even tell her she needed to put his gloves away since she was the one who got them out. He'd tell her that he didn't want to risk throwing out his back.

Wait a minute. If he threw out his back, he might need to see a doctor for back pain. That meant a new prescription for Lortab, or maybe even Oxycontin. Some people could get a permanent back injury from something like hauling sandbags. He might need a lifetime prescription for painkillers. With a little more enthusiasm, he looked for his boots. He didn't have boots. He'd have to wear tennis shoes. Wearing bad shoes on slippery mud might contribute to a back injury.

He slowed as he tied his laces. He didn't really want a back injury. It would hurt. But if he got muddy and wet and claimed his back hurt, who would ever know the difference?

After his shoes were on, he zipped up his parka. Danna came in the room. She glanced at him, but didn't say anything. He didn't say anything either. Danna wasn't an easy person to talk to.

"Here they are," Carly said, handing him his gloves.

"Thanks," he told her. "Don't wait up. I might be out late." He headed out the door.

After Spencer left, Carly was left standing with nothing to do. Danna was in the room, and that always made Carly twitchy. She had to do something.

"I think I'll make some sandwiches," she said.

Danna shrugged. "Whatever."

"Oh, you didn't hear, did you? The ward is helping the Bakers put sandbags around their house. They're afraid the basement is going to flood with all this rain. Your dad is going to help with the sandbags. I'm going to make some sandwiches for them to eat," Carly explained. She went into the kitchen and got out a loaf of bread, the cheese, mayonnaise, leftover baked ham, lettuce, and tomatoes.

"It's eight-thirty in the evening. You really think they need sandwiches?" Danna asked.

Carly didn't answer. Danna was so disrespectful. Why didn't she go find something to do? Of course they needed sandwiches. People praised Carly for her cooking and the way she always pitched in to help without being asked, unlike Spencer, who had to be called on the phone and then encouraged by his wife.

Carly had thought hard after Spencer yelled at her in front of the entire family last week. She'd finally concluded that Spencer had gone a little bit crazy, and she should forgive him and never bring it up again. If he really was angry that she was too perfect, then it was just plain old jealousy. She should simply keep doing what she'd always done, and he would eventually overcome his jealousy and appreciate her.

Carly made sandwiches.

Tracy Nesbitt was playing Old Maid with Davey when the phone rang.

"Hello?" she said, drawing a card from Davey's hand.

"Sister Nesbitt?"

"Speaking," Tracy said, setting down her hand of cards. She didn't know who was on the other end, but she could tell she was crying.

"I need help," the caller said. "The baby's crying, and I can't find Jayden, and Jason went to help at the Baker's, and I'm crying too, and Carson keeps trying to climb on me, and I wish Jason would come home but he probably won't, and I can't find Jayden!"

"Nicole? I'll be right over," Tracy said.

"Thanks," Nicole sobbed.

Tracy hung up. "Davey, do you want to come with me and play with the Benton boys? I bet Carson would love to show you his trains. Go get your jacket."

"Yeah, mom!" Davey said, and dropped his cards on the table.

"Abby!" Tracy called upstairs. "Let's go over to Sister Benton's house. She needs some help with her kids."

Abby and Ruth thundered down the stairs together. "I love Sister Benton's new baby!" Ruth proclaimed. "I get to hold the new baby!"

"I get to hold her too," Abby insisted.

"I'm sure you'll both get a turn," Tracy said. "Where are your jackets? It's pouring outside."

As the two girls turned to run back up the stairs for their jackets the lights flickered. They came back on full strength for a few seconds, and then the house was plunged in darkness as the power went out.

Chapter 90

2010-04-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Brian's father-in-law, Eliott Barrera, was hovering. He had arrived a few hours ago, after the day-long drive from California. Hannah had already asked him if he would confirm her after her dad baptized her tomorrow. He'd said it would be an honor.

Then he shook Brian's hand and even hugged him. Brian was sure that his mother-in-law had told her husband everything that Maria had told her, which was every personal problem that Brian would have preferred to keep secret. Part of him understood that Maria had simply needed to talk to someone, but most of him wished she'd picked someone outside the family. Brian had an aversion to family members knowing personal things about him. And he didn't know how to handle a father-in-law who clearly wanted to be supportive, but just as clearly didn't know how to offer that support. Brian smiled stiffly and avoided being alone with him.

He only had one hour left before his appointment with the bishop, which was Brian's other problem right now. Brian hadn't thought to make sure that he was worthy to baptize Hannah. Maria brought up the issue and made the appointment for him.

"Noah! Let's go see if there are any more tomatoes in the garden," Brian said, looking for a reason to get out of the house and away from the awkward situation with his father-in-law. There was a break in the steady rain that had been coming down most of the day.

"Yeah!" Noah shouted, jumping up from his Legos. "Let's go, grandpa!"

Well, that didn't work, Brian thought as the three of them went out into the backyard. Noah grabbed a bucket off the patio and ran ahead of the adults to find some red tomatoes. The grass squished beneath his feet. The adults stepped carefully around the puddles of standing water in the lawn.

"Has it been raining long?" Eliott asked.

"Off and on for several days," Brian answered. "It isn't the cloudbursts we usually get this time of year. This has been a hard, steady soak."

Rather than continue the conversation about the weather. Eliott cleared his throat nervously, and scratched his head as the two of them were alone for the first time since he had arrived.

Brian glanced at him and felt like a fool for avoiding him. Awkward or not, his father-in-law wanted to be kind, and Brian should stop making it difficult. "You probably know more about me than you ever wanted to know, huh?" Brian said.

Eliott cleared his throat again. "I know you have some hard things in your past, and more hard things in the present. But I think I know you well enough to be confident you can overcome all of it. The Lord doesn't give us anything we can't handle."

Brian watched Noah pick tomatoes. A wasp buzzed in the late summer air. The gardens smelled of mud and ripe things. "Sometimes I'm not so sure of that," he said.

"Trust the Lord. He won't give you anything you can't handle," Eliott repeated.

"That's right," Brian agreed, rather than press the point. He knew his father-in-law meant to be encouraging, but the reassurance made him feel isolated instead, as if he were the only one who had ever felt this overwhelmed. The thought of trying to hang on to recovery by his fingernails every day for the rest of his life frightened him. He knew it was only a matter of time before he slipped up again.

"Look at how many tomatoes we have," Noah said, hefting the bucket to show his grandfather.

"You're a fine gardener," Eliott said, taking the heavy bucket from Noah.

"Let's go show mom!"

"Good idea," grandpa said.

Brian followed them back into the house, where he excused himself to go change into a white shirt and tie for his meeting with the bishop.

Brian chatted with Brother Emery until the bishop finished his previous interview. He was only running twenty minutes behind. The bishop shook Brian's hand and ushered him into his office, inviting him to take a seat.

After an opening prayer, the bishop asked him how things were going.

"Pretty well," said Brian. "Things with my parents and sisters are pretty tense, but nothing I can't handle. We've talked to the therapist who will be working with Hannah about what to expect, and we feel good about her. Hannah is excited about getting baptized. Some of Maria's family is in town for the baptism. She's got a good family."

"That's good to hear. How are things going with your personal challenges?"

"I'm doing better than I would have expected six months ago. I've still got a long ways to go, but when I look at where I came from, I've made a lot of progress."

"Have you been looking at pornography since the last time we talked?" the bishop asked.

The last time Brian talked to the bishop was when he'd gotten a blessing before starting therapy. "Yes. Four or five times. I rationalized that it was all right once in a while. I had an experience, though. It was pretty incredible. I felt like I was shown the real cost of using porn, and I felt Christ taking my sins from me. I haven't used porn since then, and I've recommitted to never using it again."

"What steps are you taking to keep that commitment?"

"Whatever seems to work. My therapist has had some good suggestions. Conflict with my parents and sisters always brings up the temptation. Praying to forgive them and have charity for them lessens the temptation to the point where I don't act on it. Other times I remind myself about what it felt like to be forgiven."

"Are any of your family members here for Hannah's baptism?" Bishop Bones asked.

"No. Maria told you that Hannah was molested by my nephew, right? That's caused a lot of turmoil in the family. It's not a good situation right now. When my mom suggested she and dad fly out, I told them not to come. I wanted Hannah's baptism to be peaceful and spiritual," Brian said.

"That must have been a difficult decision," Bishop Bones said.

Brian put his head in his hands and blew out a long sigh. "Yeah, but it would have been harder to have them here."

"I wish there was a way for you to talk things out with your family, Brian. Sometimes a hard conversation that gets things out in the open can be the beginning of a healing process," the bishop said.

Brian gave a short, sarcastic laugh. "You don't know my family. Nothing ever gets out in the open and heals in my family. The closest we come to healing is pretending nothing ever happened."

"Leave the door open for reconciliation at some point, Brian, but don't rush things," Bishop Bones said. When Brian didn't respond, Bishop Bones moved on. "I had another question. Have you considered going to an addiction recovery meeting?"

"You mean the Twelve Step program?"

"Yes."

Brian thought about it. "I've tried going before, but I couldn't make it work. Talking to my therapist has been all I've needed to help me quit."

The bishop nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. The Twelve Step missionaries and facilitators I've talked with frequently encourage participants to use therapy to address the issues underlying a pornography addiction. However, quitting pornography and repenting for using pornography are not quite the same thing. Quitting is a huge step, and I congratulate you. Quitting doesn't automatically close the distance that pornography has put between you and God. That's where repentance comes in. I like to think of repentance as closing the distance between ourselves and Heavenly Father."

The bishop took a piece of paper and pen and drew a line on it. "This first line is living close to Heavenly Father." He drew a second line that departed from the first line on an angle. "This second line that diverges from it is what happens when we sin. As we continue to sin, the distance between ourselves and Heavenly Father becomes greater and greater. When we stop sinning, the distance stops increasing, but the line continues moving ahead on a track parallel to Heavenly Father." He drew the second line straightening out and continuing parallel to the first line. "If we want to draw close to God again," and the bishop angled the second line back in to join the first, "then we have to repent. We need to consciously make the effort to close the distance that sin put between ourselves and Heavenly Father."

Brian looked at the lines on the paper. "I'm working on closing the distance," he said, putting his finger on the second line where it bent back to the first line. "The last impression I had after the spiritual experience when I felt forgiven was to bring forth the fruits of repentance. I've been trying to do that."

"What have you been doing?"

"Well, I've been trying to forsake my sins. And I've been working hard on forgiving other people," Brian said.

"Good." The bishop waited.

"It's been hard, though." Brian considered. He had been stewing and wondering about how to endure to the end. The struggle wasn't getting any easier. Some days he was sure failure was just around the corner. Joining a Twelve Step program, now that he had a better understanding of God's nature, might give him the framework he needed to make his repentance stick.

"I should do it," Brian announced. "I'll start going to the meetings as soon as Maria's family leaves."

"Glad to hear it," the bishop said. "Would you also consider meeting with me regularly to discuss your progress?"

"Yeah, why not," Brian said.

"One more thing."

"Sure."

"There is also a meeting for the spouses of addicts. Why don't you ask Maria if she wants to attend those meetings?"

"You think it would matter? I mean, I'm the one with all the problems. Maria is the rock in our family. She could probably teach those meetings," Brian laughed.

Bishop Bones shook his head. "The truth is that women are affected by pornography more than men realize. Your porn use has caused a distance to spring up in your marriage. Whether you can see it or not, I guarantee that your wife feels alienated and confused. She has her own healing process to go through. And just like repentance, you're both going to need to put in the effort to draw close together again." The bishop traced the trajectory of the second line again, with its divergence, straightaway, and eventual return to the first line. "Quitting porn means the distance between you two has stopped increasing, but you're both going to need to learn to draw back together."

Brian hadn't considered Maria's needs that way. He knew she needed him to quit, but he hadn't thought he would need to do anything else for his marriage. "What happens at the spouse meetings? They all get together and talk about how awful it is to be married to guys like us?"

"Not at all. They work through the Twelve Steps also, but with the program modified to address their specific issues. It's focused on coming to Christ, just like the meetings you'll be attending," the bishop said.

"I guess I can ask her. I don't think she'll be interested. Maria doesn't need a lot of support; she never has. She's always the one supporting other people. But I'll tell her about the meetings if you think it would be a good idea," Brian said.

"I do think it would be a good idea," Bishop Bones said.

"Okay." Brian wiped his hands on his suit pants. "Now about that question I asked you the other day. Can I baptize Hannah? Am I worthy?"

The bishop's gaze didn't falter. "Brian, I've made this a matter of prayer. You aren't under any formal Church discipline, and you're also not on informal probation. But that's only because we haven't been meeting and working through repentance together. Frequently, someone who has used pornography while renewing and holding a temple recommend goes through an informal or formal discipline process. Pornography is a violation of the law of chastity. You are not worthy to exercise the Melchizedek Priesthood at this time. You can baptize Hannah. Baptism is an Aaronic Priesthood ordinance, but you can't confirm her. I'm sorry, Brian."

"Could I stand in the circle while her grandfather confirms her?" Brian asked.

The bishop considered, then finally said yes.

Brian nodded. "All right. You know I confirmed Ruth when I was using pornography."

"That ordinance is valid," the bishop said.

"So I get a free pass for that one?" Brian said with half a smile.

"No, you'll have to repent for the hypocrisy of using the Priesthood while unworthy."

The half-smile dropped off Brian's face.

Bishop Bones leaned forward. "There's one other issue. A man who is not worthy of the Melchizedek Priesthood is also not worthy to enter the temple. Brian, I'm very encouraged by what you've told me tonight, but I need to ask you to surrender your temple recommend until we've worked through the repentance process."

Brian took out his wallet, found his temple recommend, and pushed it across the desk. "This may sound strange to you, but it's a relief to have you tell me that I'm not worthy."

The bishop's eyebrows went up. "That isn't what I was expecting you to say."

Brian shrugged. "I don't know if all addicts feel this way, but I've always had this sense of entitlement, of being different from other people, and that's why ordinary rules didn't apply to me. That was part of the way I rationalized my porn use; I was different. It's a relief to not be different anymore. The same rules that apply to everyone else apply to me. If I'm not worthy, you shouldn't make an exception to the rule."

Bishop Bones frowned thoughtfully. "That is an interesting perspective. You've just reminded me of a scripture." He thumbed through his Doctrine and Covenants, and handed Brian a verse to read.

Brian read: "That which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same. That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore they must remain filthy still."

"Does that sound like what you just said?" the bishop asked.

"Yeah, it does. I don't want to be a law unto myself anymore," Brian said. "I mentioned that experience not long ago when I felt forgiven. One of the clear impressions during that experience was that I should bring forth the fruits of repentance. You can put me under Church discipline, bishop. I'll do whatever it takes to be sanctified by the law."

"Let's start meeting regularly, Brian. I want to hear your insights about repentance."

"Christ is my Savior. He saved me from my sins. I don't want to sin anymore, but I need help. That's my insight about repentance."

In the dressing room adjoining the baptismal font, Brian changed into his white temple pants and a long-sleeved white shirt. He left his bag with his dry clothes in the dressing room and walked out in his bare feet.

Hannah was already dressed in her white jumpsuit, with the elastic waist and long zipper. It showed her leg four inches above her ankle. Baptismal jumpsuits were always too short. Her long dark hair was braided to keep it from floating in the water.

"Come stand together," his sister-in-law, Carmen, ordered them. "I need pictures."

They stood in front of a plain brick wall. Brian put his hands on Hannah's shoulders. She looked up at him and smiled just as Carmen snapped the picture.

"That was priceless. Now one more looking at the camera," Carmen said.

Maria snapped a few pictures too.

"Give me your camera and go stand with them," Carmen ordered her sister, pulling the camera out of Maria's hand. She took several pictures of the three of them. "Ruth and Noah, you go stand with them too." Ruth and Noah joined them, and Carmen snapped more pictures on both cameras. "Mom said to send at least a dozen photos. Was anyone counting? Do we have twelve pictures yet?"

"Almost. You go stand with them too, and I'll take the next pictures," Carmen's husband, Jack, said. He pushed Carmen towards her sister and took more photos.

"Us, too, dad?" his daughter asked.

"Everyone in the picture!" Jack called, and his three children joined their cousins. "Now get closer together. Sunny, scoot in. Grandpa, you get in the picture too."

Giggles erupted as the cousins started shoving and piling on each other.

"Funny faces, this time," Jack said, and everyone pulled a face. "That's all. Now go back to being reverent." The laughter increased.

"Are you ready? The other ward just finished," Sister Martensen, the Primary President, asked as she came down the hall.

Brian took Hannah's hand. "Let's go."

The giggles dropped off as the family walked to the Primary room and filed in. Several ward members were already there. The folding doors at the back of the room were opened, showing the full baptismal font. The angled mirror over the font gave a clear view of the water in the font lapping gently.

Brian and Hannah took their seats on the front row and listened to the pianist play Primary songs for prelude music.

"Dad?" Hannah whispered.

"Hmm?"

"Do I have to get baptized today?"

"You're all ready to be baptized. Why do you want to wait?" Brian asked.

"In case I do something wrong later," Hannah whispered. "How come I get baptized just as I'm old enough to start doing things wrong? Shouldn't I wait until I'm old enough that I'm all done doing bad things?"

"Well," Brian started. The Fourth Article of Faith stated that repentance preceded baptism, and then you were baptized for a remission of sins. But Hannah had barely reached the age of accountability. She didn't have any sins to repent and remit. Mormons didn't baptize infants because they were without sin. An eight-year-old didn't have any sins either. She stood on the brink of sins and responsibility.

"Baptism is a promise, Hannah. Heavenly Father promises to forgive you when you repent for doing anything wrong for the rest of your life. He doesn't expect you to never commit a sin. You get baptized so you know Heavenly Father already promised to forgive you. That way you won't ever be afraid to admit you did something wrong and repent," Brian said.

"Everything I do wrong?" Hannah asked.

"Everything."

"Even the things I haven't thought of yet?" Hannah pressed.

"Even those things."

"How can he do that?"

"Heavenly Father doesn't pay much attention to time. He sees everything at once. He already knows he's going to forgive you when you repent, no matter what you do wrong," Brian said.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"Is repenting hard?"

"Yes."

"I've never repented, dad. Are you going to teach me how?"

Brian put an arm around her. "Yes, I'll teach you how."

"Okay, dad."

The prelude music ended. After a brief program, Brian and Hannah separated to go through the dressing rooms and into the font. Brian walked down the three stairs into the waist-high water and crossed the font to offer Hannah his hand as she came down her own stairs. He arranged her hands the way they had practiced in the living room last night, and raised his arm to the square.

The words of the baptismal prayer caught in his throat and he had to start over. As he lowered Hannah into the water, she smiled at him as she closed her eyes. It astounded Brian that she still wanted to trust him, in spite of the years he had failed her. In some ways, her trust frightened him. He wasn't sure he could be as trustworthy as Hannah needed him to be.

She hugged him hard around the waist after he raised her back up out of the water. He hugged her back. He hadn't disappointed her today. At least for today, he was a good man. He would worry about tomorrow when it came.

Chapter 89

2010-04-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Spencer Simmons was already feeling churlish even before he noticed how many weeds were in the flowerbed. Was it too much to ask that his wife and kids help out with the yard work once in a while? Apparently, it was. Stephanie would do the weeding if he asked her, but he wanted Yancy and Austin to do it. Carly spoiled their sons too much. They needed to learn the value of hard work and sweat, and that meant yard work.

His sons wouldn't be so soft if Carly liked camping. Spencer grew up camping and hiking. Carly had gone along with it while they were dating, but put her foot down when her daughters were small. Camping was dirty, and took too much work. She didn't like bugs or eating outdoors. They didn't need to camp. Spencer should have stood his ground and insisted they go camping. Instead, he had two boys whose only camping experience would be with the Scouts. They'd probably get teased about not knowing how to camp. And it was Carly's fault.

The problem was that they'd had daughters first. Daughters were naturally the mother's territory; Spencer stood back and let Carly have her way in everything regarding Danna and Stephanie. By the time they had sons, the pattern was set, and Carly dominated their sons as well. Yes, if only Austin and Yancy were the older children, everything would have been different because he would have been more involved. It was all Carly's fault.

In the short time it took for Spencer to walk from his car into the house, he had identified Carly as the source of everything that was wrong with his family. He felt righteous indignation welling up in him. He needed to make some changes in his family right now, by whatever means necessary. This must have been how Christ felt when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple.

Spencer walked into a house that smelled like chicken enchiladas. The table was neatly set, including napkins and a centerpiece, like it always was. Stephanie was on the couch in the living room, reading a textbook. Video game sound effects came from the family room. Danna, as usual, was nowhere to be seen.

Carly was bustling around the kitchen, finishing the salad and putting the jam and butter on the table for the rolls. Spencer put down the satchel he carried to and from work, and went into the bedroom to take off his tie. Carly called everyone to the dinner table.

Danna blew into the house just as they were sitting down, yanked out a chair, and plopped into it. Without saying anything to anyone, she folded her arms for the prayer and let out a jaw-cracking yawn.

"Danna, would you say the blessing on the food?" Carly asked her.

Danna continued her yawn.

"I'm the family patriarch; I'll call on someone for the prayer," Spencer said testily.

"It would be nice if Danna participated more in this family," Carly said pointedly.

"And it would also be nice if you respected me," Spencer shot back.

The surprise on Carly's face was visible.

Spencer called on Stephanie to say the blessing on the food.

After Stephanie blessed the food, Carly picked up the serving utensil and asked Spencer, "shall I serve you first?"

"Thank you," Spencer said, holding out his plate. Carly dumped a chunk of chicken enchilada on his plate.

As Carly continued dishing up chicken enchiladas, Spencer asked Austin, "did you pass off all the Second Class Scouting requirements last week at camp?"

Austin shrugged. "Most of them," he mumbled around a mouthful of enchilada.

"Are you a First Class Scout now or not?" Spencer asked him.

"Nah, he failed the part of the Scout Law that says you have to be brave, clean and reverent," Yancy contributed.

Austin hit him.

"And the parts about being friendly and kind," Yancy added.

"Yancy, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," Carly told him.

Danna choked on her roll and emitted a sound that was suspiciously like a laugh before smothering it with a drink of water.

"Yeah, Yancy, shut up for the rest of your life," Austin said.

"Mom, this salad is really good," Stephanie said.

"Are you a First Class Scout or not?" Spencer asked again.

"I had the most wonderful idea for your Eagle Scout project!" Carly said. "There was an article in the paper today about a group of soldiers coming home from Iraq, and I thought it would be so patriotic and delightful if you worked to put up a monument to them in the city park. So many people went sour on that war after the media conspiracy covered up the truth about the weapons of mass destruction, and it would be so appropriate to find a way to honor the soldiers who freed Iraq and made the world safe for democracy!"

Danna emitted another choking sound.

Austin took such a huge bite that he couldn't close his mouth all the way. Bits of chicken and sauce fell out of his mouth and onto his shirt.

"That's a really neat idea, mom," Stephanie said.

"Maybe they can carve your name in stone next to the soldiers' names," Danna said. "Because being an Eagle Scout is as good as fighting terrorists."

"I think it would look nice to have a little something stating that the monument was Austin Simmons' Eagle Project," Carly agreed.

"I'm trying to find out whether or not he was advanced to First Class rank or not!" Spencer roared. "Would you all please shut up until he answers the question?"

"Dear, there's no reason to get upset. Of course he was advanced. We need to start looking forward to his next accomplishments," Carly said.

Yancy smirked. "No, he wasn't."

Austin hit him again.

"Ow, mom, make him stop hitting me," Yancy said, rubbing his arm theatrically.

"Austin, is that true?" Spencer asked.

"I'm sure it isn't. Of course he finished everything at scout camp," Carly said.

"Would you shut up for once in your life!" Spencer bellowed at her.

The sound Danna emitted was definitely a giggle this time. Stephanie stopped chewing to stare at her father. Austin slumped lower in his chair. Yancy's grin grew from ear to ear.

Shocked, Carly tittered nervously.

"Don't you laugh at me!" Spencer yelled. "I've had about enough of your attitude and the way you run everything around here. You've ruined our boys and turned them into little wimps who can't even make First Class in scouting! You manage to screw up everything you get involved in by being such a control freak. Don't you even listen in Church? You ought to be respecting me and letting me be the leader in our home! Some days, I don't even know why I married you!"

"Dad, mom works really hard," Stephanie started timidly.

"You shut up! This is between your mom and me!" Spencer roared at her.

Stephanie managed to become smaller without moving.

"You git 'er, dad!" Yancy said.

Austin mumbled something about being excused and left the table.

Danna looked towards her mother like a cat at a mousehole, waiting for the comeback.

"How can you say such things to me?" Carly cried out. "I've worked and worked for this family. Everything I do is for this family! I only step in to help you out when you're going to do something wrong."

"Help out? You call it helping out? You run this family like a tyrant, and you're just helping out? Is that it? I don't need your help anymore! I'm not sure I even need you anymore! You're one of the most selfish people I've ever met. You have to run everyone's life, and you do a crappy job of it!" Spencer yelled.

"Wow, dad," Danna said.

"I'm not selfish," Carly said. "I don't try to run anyone's life. I just make suggestions once in a while. You don't understand me."

"I don't understand you?! I understand you perfectly! You've got to have everything perfect, or you make everyone's life hell. We have to have Family Home Evening, feed the missionaries, go to every bloody Church activity ever scheduled, and be ten minutes early for Church every week! We all cave in to you just to make you shut up, and sometimes that doesn't even work. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of you running this family. I'm sick of what you've done to our sons. I'm not even sure I want to be married to you anymore," Spencer vented. He'd been storing up these feelings for so long that once he got started, the eruption was out of his control.

White-faced, Stephanie fled the kitchen.

Danna started clapping.

Yancy crossed his eyes and blew a raspberry.

"You don't love me?" Carly whispered in a tortured voice.

Spencer sensed her weakness and went in for the kill. "You are the most uptight, neurotic woman on the planet. No one could love you."

"And you're not capable of loving anyone else, either," Danna added, triumphantly looking at her dad for support and approval as she joined him in his attack.

Riding the wave of his newfound power, Spencer wasn't going to share this moment with anyone. "Stay out of this, Danna. I don't need your help."

Danna stood up so fast her chair fell over. "She doesn't love me and you don't need me. Tell me something I don't know." She stalked out of the kitchen.

"Hey, dad," said Yancy, the only child left at the table, "if you guys get divorced, will you buy me a Wii so I'll like you best?"

Danna paused at the kitchen entryway. "You know what, dad? Don't get divorced. You two totally deserve each other." And then she was gone.

Carly set down the fork that still had an uneaten bite of chicken enchilada on it and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, her eyes wide in shattered shock. Then she gathered herself up and picked up her plate and glass. She set them on the counter.

"Will you look at that?" she said with cracking cheer. "Austin didn't finish his dinner. Usually he inhales everything." She cleared Austin's plate and ran his food down the garbage disposal. "I used too many green chilies. Don't you think there were too many green chilies?" Her voice was spiraling higher and higher, out of her reach and out of her control. "I'll make a note to use fewer green chilies next time." She dropped the glass in the sink, and whispered a polite 'excuse me' as she walked out of the kitchen, shoulders stiff.

Yancy pushed his empty plate out of the way and replaced it with Stephanie's. He shoveled a mouthful of Stephanie's food into his mouth. "Someone pee in your Cheerios this morning, dad?"

Spencer sat in the ashes of his eruption. He tried to fan the dying flames by reminding himself that he'd only spoken the truth, and Carly deserved everything he said to her. She shouldn't have gotten so hurt. She should have recognized the truth of what he'd said and volunteered to change and not be so uptight. She should have acknowledged his authority in front of the children. Why had they all run off? They all sat through worse fights between Carly and Danna. They were his audience. Only Yancy was still here.

"Do the dishes tonight, son," Spencer said, shoving back from the table.

"It's Austin's turn! I'm not doing them!" Yancy protested as Spencer left the kitchen.

Spencer didn't turn around.

The Simmonses spent the rest of the evening avoiding each other, or being painfully polite.

As they got ready for bed that night, Carly picked up her pillow and plumped it. "My back is bothering me. I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight. It's softer than the bed."

"Do you need the heating pad?" Spencer offered.

"I'll get it from the hall closet," Carly said.

"I hope your back feels better in the morning," Spencer said.

"Thank you," said Carly, as she left the bedroom and went downstairs.

Spencer sat on the edge of the bed, wondering when the turmoil inside him would die down. He was too keyed up to sleep. He opened the medicine cabinet, and found an old bottle of Lortab he'd gotten after a root canal a few years ago. He popped it open. There were still four pills left. He'd heard that medication became less effective over the years. He'd probably need two Lortab to get the effect he needed. He swallowed two, and went to bed.

Within a few minutes, a welcome haze crept over his thoughts. He felt like he was floating in a comforting fog that blurred all his problems into oblivion. Good stuff, Lortab.

Carly put sheets and a blanket on the couch, then knelt down to say her prayers. They were very automatic that night. It's wrong to have a fight with your husband, and Carly felt very self-conscious about praying when she knew she'd committed a sin. But because it was a sin not to pray, she prayed anyway.

After she said 'amen,' she climbed onto the couch and huddled down in the blanket. Now she was totally alone. Everyone else in the house was asleep upstairs. Solitude was safe. She felt the tension in her shoulders gradually ease and the determination blocking the fight out of her thoughts weakened. She hadn't done anything wrong. That was the part she didn't understand. Dinner tonight was delicious; she'd made up the problem about the green chilies. The table was set. Danna came home on time. She'd been thinking about Austin's Eagle project for days; it was natural to mention it when the conversation turned to scouting.

She pressed her mouth into the blanket. Spencer was mad at her for being too good, but that didn't make any sense. How could you get angry at someone who did everything right? Carly's purpose in life was to do everything right so no one would ever get mad at her, and Spencer had changed the rules. He'd said he didn't love her. She was the most perfect wife and mother she could possibly be so he would love her, and he didn't.

Tears leaked out. Carly didn't cry very often because she had such a good life. She was so confused. If only she'd done something wrong, she could repent and change. But Spencer had yelled at her for having Family Home Evening, and faithfully going to Church and Church activities. How could she repent for doing the right things? The tears turned into a steady flow. She tried and tried to be good enough so people would love her, and she still failed. Self-pity was a sin. Now she was sinning, but no one was around to see it.

Her breath caught in a sob. If she was going to sin, she may as well let it happen and repent later. She turned on the crying full force, and felt sorry for herself. No one loved her. She gave her husband four children, a clean house, delicious meals, obeyed the prophet as well as she could, and he still wanted more from her. Maybe tomorrow she would be humble enough to pray and ponder about how she could improve her marriage and parenting skills, but tonight she was going to wallow in self-pity, just like those women in Relief Society whom she despised for saying they didn't even try to be perfect anymore.

After a long time, Carly sniffled herself out. She needed a tissue. It would be uncouth to wipe her nose on the sheet. She'd already bent her housekeeping rules by wiping her eyes on the sheet. She didn't keep tissues downstairs. She'd have to go upstairs to get a tissue and wash her face. She listened, but it seemed very quiet upstairs. She climbed off the couch and crept upstairs.

Light came from under the bathroom door. She paused and listened to the unmistakable sounds of retching. A quick glance around at the bedrooms showed that only Stephanie's door was open. The poor dear must have stomach flu, and that's why she didn't finish her dinner tonight.

Carly was a good mother. She could help Stephanie. She went down to the pantry and fished out a can of ginger ale that she kept specifically for nausea. She poured it into a glass for Stephanie, and added some ice cubes. She took a napkin to set it on, so there wouldn't be a wet ring on Stephanie's night stand, and went back upstairs.

Danna came out of her room as Carly reached the top of the stairs. Her flat stare drilled into Carly's raw emotions. She lifted her chin and defended herself to Danna. "Stephanie has stomach flu. I brought her some ginger ale to settle her stomach." I'm a good mother, she insisted to herself. Danna should see what a good mother she was, to help her sick daughter.

"You're the most clueless person on the planet," Danna said, and brushed past her.

Carly held herself together very carefully as she placed the glass of ginger ale on Stephanie's night table and went back out. She tapped very softly on the bathroom door. "Sweetheart, are you sick? I put some ginger ale on your night stand."

"I'm fine, mom," Stephanie answered from the other side of the closed door. "I'm going to clean up the bathroom a bit and go to bed."

"I can clean it up for you," Carly said. "You should go to bed and get some rest."

"No, I'll do it. It's no trouble," Stephanie said.

"Are you sure? Because I'm happy to take care of you," Carly said, very conscious of the fact that Danna was walking past her and back to her own room.

"I'll do it. You go to bed," Stephanie said.

"All right, sweetheart. You let me know if you need anything. I'll be downstairs." Carly wondered if she should have announced she wasn't sleeping with her husband that night. "My back is bothering me, so I'm going to spend the night on the couch."

"Thanks, mom," Stephanie said.

"I love you, sweetie," Carly said.

"I love you too, mom," Stephanie said.

Carly went downstairs, feeling partially redeemed. Spencer thought she had failed as a wife and mother. No success could compensate for failure in the home. She couldn't have failed because there was no way to make up for failure. Stephanie was proof of her success. She'd raised a daughter so conscientious and thoughtful that she even cleaned up after herself when she had stomach flu. She clung to Stephanie's approval and perfection. So long as one person in the family approved of her, she hadn't failed. Someday the rest of them would see the error of their ways and realize she was right and always had been. And when they did, she would graciously forgive them, because that was the right thing to do.

She climbed back into the sheets on the couch and laid there for two hours with her racing thoughts and dry eyes until she finally fell asleep.

Chapter 88

2010-04-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Spencer Simmons swung into work with a flourish in his stride. The weather was perfect, his boss was out of town, and he'd written to Heidi Ward yesterday. She always responded so promptly that he looked forward to her email today. He wondered if there was a way he could ask her to send a picture without being inappropriate. They both knew nothing could come of their relationship in this life, but he would like a picture of her. Until then, he would merely savor her words.

>To: Spencer Simmons
>From: Heidi Ward
>Date: August 7, 2010
>Re: Just to say hi

Hi Spencer,

It's so thoughtful of you to keep in touch. I am happy to hear that your daughter, Danna, is growing out of her problems. We often think something is permanent, and it turns out it was just a stage! I believe you were blessed that the only things Danna did wrong was to dress badly and listen to music that wasn't conducive to the spirit. So many teenagers go off the deep end with behavior like drugs, promiscuity, or running away from home. I'm sure Danna was never as far away as you and your wife feared she was.

I remember having some sharp disagreements with my mom when I was a teenager too. Now that I'm older, my mom is one of my best friends and I roll my eyes when I remember what a spoiled girl I was when I was a teen. Give it a few more years, and I'm sure Danna and your wife will be close friends too. The daddy-daughter relationship can be kind of tricky, can't it? I'm sure Danna knows how much you love her, and you two can be closer now that she's grown out of her bad attitude.

My parents are in good health, thanks for asking. I do get to see my nieces and nephews a couple of times a month. It's so fun to watch them grow up! They're too young to be in the rebellious teenage stage yet, but I'm sure my brothers will go through some of the same things you've gone through.

And I have such good news! I've been meaning to write and tell you. I've met someone. A mutual friend lined us up. He's a widower with four children. His name is Stewart. He's three years younger than I am (a younger man! Can you believe it!), and we've been going out for a few months now. It's too soon to really say anything about our relationship other than that we like to be together. I've really hit it off with a couple of his kids, but the older two are a little more cautious. I completely understand. Their mother died two and a half years ago, and they're old enough to still have clear memories of her and worry about forgetting her. Stewart and I have talked about her a lot. Of course he will always love her, but it also feels like he'd be open to loving someone else too. I hope it's me! Only time will tell. I'll keep you updated. Maybe you can give me advice about parenting in a little while.

Have a good day,
Heidi

Spencer closed the email, feeling punched in the gut. Heidi was supposed to be his second wife, not the second wife of some guy named Stewart who had been lucky enough to have his wife die. If Heidi got sealed to Stewart, she'd be giving up any chance of a relationship with him in the eternities. It would mean she'd never really loved him at all. It would mean that Spencer had no one but Carly for time and all eternity. Eternal marriage had never sounded so bleak.

"Mom, I'm so sorry I asked you to come out earlier. I didn't even think that it would mean you'd have to miss Hannah's baptism because you'd use up all your vacation days," Maria said to her mom.

"I needed to come out earlier. It was good to have you and your family all to myself. You'll have Carmen and her family at the baptism. Your dad is coming too. When are Rita and Juan coming to visit?" Alana asked her daughter.

"Rita is coming out in October. By that time, Hannah will have been in therapy for about a month. We thought that would give Hannah some time to start talking about what happened, and she'd be more willing to talk to Rita by that time," Maria said. "Juan can't come out; he can't get enough vacation days to make the trip worth it. He'll stay home with the kids."

"This is more family than you've seen in years, isn't it? It's too bad it takes something like this to remind us of how important it is to rely on each other and keep those relationships strong," Alana said.

"Everyone is pulling together to help us, and it means so much. Just being able to talk about Hannah and what we need to do to help her has meant so much to me," Maria said. "You can't imagine what it was like when I was afraid to tell anyone. I've mentioned it to a couple people in the ward whose discretion I trust, and they've been so kind and supportive too. I wish I hadn't waited so long to talk to people."

"At least you finally said something," Alana said. "These daughters who keep things from their mothers, I will never understand."

"Oh," Maria said, flustered.

Alana laughed. "I'm teasing you, papi."

"Thanks for listening to me, even if it did take me a while to talk about it," Maria said.

"You are my baby girl. Of course I listen to you. You call me again tomorrow. You also email me pictures of Hannah and Brian in their baptismal clothes. I want to see them," Alana said.

"We will."

"I love you."

"I love you too, mom."

Maria hung up the phone. Now she had one more phone call to make, and it was also about finding people to talk to about the problems she couldn't carry alone. She punched in the numbers and listened to the phone ring.

"Hello, LDS Family Services."

"Hi, I looked up the addiction recovery meetings on the Church website and it said to call and make sure the meeting time and place were current," Maria said.

The person who answered the phone asked which city she lived in, and then read her the address that she'd gotten off the website.

"They have a support group for the spouses, right? Is it okay if I come without my husband? He's working with a private therapist. He's making a lot of progress, but sometimes," Maria trailed off.

"Of course you can come."

"Thank you," Maria said, and hung up. The chance to lose herself in Hannah's needs had given Maria something solid to do, and a way to put the other problems she faced on the shelf for a time. She was a mother; she could throw herself into rescuing her daughter with her entire heart and soul.

Now that they had therapy and support in place for Hannah, Maria had to turn her attention to the problem she didn't know how to handle. She knew Brian was making a Herculean effort to quit pornography. She knew he wasn't entirely to blame for starting to use pornography. She knew he felt bad about it. She knew she needed to forgive him and learn to trust him again. She knew all those things, and it didn't affect her feelings one bit. She felt betrayed, shaken, used and inadequate.

Did his secret pornography addiction affect the priesthood ordinances he'd performed for their family over the years? She kept trying to convince herself that her deepest concerns were about the spiritual impact of his pornography addiction. If the biggest issue with his pornography use was his worthiness to exercise his priesthood, then she didn't have to think about its affect on her as a woman.

Was he thinking about her all those times they'd made love over the years, or fantasizing about a woman from the computer screen? Did he secretly sneer at her efforts in bed? She wasn't drunk, airbrushed, getting paid to pretend she liked something, or taking directions from a choreographer. He probably thought she was a pathetic prude in bed. She hadn't worn her favorite lavender negligee since finding out he looked at porn. She used to think it was beautiful, seductive and sexy. But it was probably a delusion to think that anything worn by a frumpy Mormon wife who was pushing middle-age would turn on a porn addict. Of course he had to fantasize about other women while she gave her body to him.

She loved Brian. She wanted to forgive him. She told herself she had forgiven him. And yet she cringed away from his touch. Then she felt guilty about telling him no. What if her frigidity drove him back to porn? But it was his porn use that made her want to tell him no all the time. How would she ever regain her sexual self-confidence? She couldn't compete with those online women, and didn't want to humiliate herself by trying. Could she fight for her marriage without trying to outdo a porn actress?

It was so much easier to be a mother than it was to be a wife. She hoped that the spouse's support group would help her find a way to be Brian's wife again. She was looking for other women to talk to because she still couldn't talk to Brian. Even before Hannah's bombshell monopolized all their conversation, talking about Brian's porn use had been off-limits. She didn't know if telling him her feelings would help or hurt. He was working so hard, but she still never quite trusted his reactions.

Besides, he was dealing with heavy fall-out from his family. He wasn't talking about that either. They'd never talked about the big issues in their marriage, and they still weren't talking about them as much as Maria needed. She was going to this support group, and she was going to talk. She didn't care how Brian felt about it, or even if she was going to tell him.

Danna bounced into Maria's car that evening on their way to their weekly Frosty meeting.

"You look happy," Maria said.

"I've been over at Brandon and Amanda's. They've got mountains of baby stuff all over their house. It's pretty funny watching them," Danna said.

"Do you get to hold the baby?"

"I'm not really into babies. They smell funny and don't do anything. I like them once they get older."

"It will be different when you're holding your own baby. You'll love the way she smells, and it will surprise you how many things she can do, even as a newborn," Maria said. "You end up watching them sleep, just to see all the things they do."

"Nope, no babies for me," Danna said, and laughed.

"You just wait," Maria warned her playfully.

"Think whatever you want," Danna said.

"Give it a few years. You'll want kids someday," Maria said.

"Not a chance. I've been so happy since I gave up the idea of being a Mormon and having a family. No way am I going to volunteer for that guilt trip again. I'll hold someone else's baby once every few years. That will be more than enough," Danna said.

Maria looked at her, hoping that what she planned tonight would make a difference.

They pulled into Wendy's and got their Frosties. Danna updated Maria on the latest stories she'd heard from Tranquilla, the front desk receptionist at her job.

"Her son actually finished his court-ordered treatment. Tranquilla is really hoping he can stay clean this time. She's worried he won't ever be able to find a decent job, though. With his police record, he's not exactly someone you want to hire. She's all freaked out he'll start selling drugs just to get money. That would be a really dumb thing to do, but Tranquilla says her son has never been all that smart," Danna said.

"Poor Tranquilla. It must be hard to love your son that much and watch him make poor choices," Maria said.

"Yep, kids are nothing but heartache and regret."

"Children are also a lot of joy. Parenthood is hard, but it's worth it."

"You're right," Danna said seriously. "I'm sure my mother thanks Heavenly Father every day that I'm her daughter." Then she burst out in derisive laughter.

Maria wanted to say something in defense of Carly Simmons, simply because she was a mother too. But thoughts of Peggy Anderson, her mother-in-law, stopped her instinctive words. Finally she said, "a mother can fail her child, and still love the child."

"And that makes it all right?" Danna demanded.

"Well, no," Maria said in a small voice, "but it means the mother hurts too."

Danna snorted. "Not my mother. My mother doesn't have feelings. And even if she did, I wouldn't care."

Maria took a slow spoonful of Frosty, without any idea of what to say. So that's what she said. "I wish you were talking to someone who knew what to say."

"Are you kidding? Then you'd be just like everyone else and I wouldn't want to talk to you at all," Danna said.

"I used to always know what to say."

"At least you grew out of that stage," Danna said.

"It was a nice stage," Maria said. "I liked thinking I knew all the answers and how to fix everything." Then she laughed because it was true and she knew she couldn't go back to that stage. She bit her lip.

"Yeah, self-delusion is great, isn't it?"

"Sometimes, yes, it is," Maria said. "You learn a lot more once you admit you don't know all the answers, though."

"And once you quit hanging around people who insist they know all the answers," Danna added.

"Who are you hanging around with now?" Maria asked.

Danna shrugged. "People like Tranquilla, and Amanda and Brandon. They're not always telling me what to do."

Maria was tempted to ask Danna what she was doing differently now, but she didn't want to push her into doing something unwise simply to prove that she could do it. Instead, she changed the subject. "Do you remember what I asked you last week?"

"Something about a lesson," Danna said.

"Yes. I wanted to ask your opinion about a way to teach the law of chastity in a way that would be more helpful. Can I show you what I came up with?"

Danna shrugged.

Maria took that as an affirmative, and pulled small pictures of the temple out of the bag she'd brought. She explained at length that bodies and people are like temples because the spirit of the Lord can dwell in them. Danna kept methodically eating her Frosty without doing anything besides grunting occasionally.

When Maria scribbled on a picture of a temple and compared a sexual assault to vandalism, Danna finally interrupted her.

"You're talking like that's a bad thing. It might do the temple some good if someone spray-painted graffiti on it. Then it wouldn't think it was so pure and holy that it wouldn't allow anyone in unless they're just as pure and holy. It's just a building. I don't see why it thinks it's too good for normal people. Temples are self-righteous snobs." Danna giggled at her own outrageous statements.

If Danna intended to throw Maria off-balance, it worked. Maria tried to stammer out a course correction. This was her beautiful, inspired object lesson that emphasized God's love, and Danna was mocking it. "Temples are a symbol of purity. They're the place where we can draw closer to God than anywhere else on earth."

"Can I borrow your Sharpie?"

Maria handed it to her. Danna took the picture that Maria had already written on and added "SO DO I" under Maria's scrawled, "I HATE YOU." She flipped it back across the table towards Maria.

"Temples are where we learn that if you're good enough, you have to spend all eternity with your family. I'm not doing it. I'm going to be free of my family, and that means getting as far away from God, temples and families as I can," Danna said.

"But Danna, can't you imagine a family that loves and accepts you for who you are? Can you imagine the joy of being with people like that for all eternity? That's what the temple stands for. That's what Heavenly Father promises us," Maria pleaded.

"That's what it means for you," Danna said. "I didn't get born into a family like that. And in case you haven't noticed, my mom is perfect. She keeps all her covenants perfectly – she goes to Church, reads her scriptures, pays her tithing, keeps the Word of Wisdom, magnifies her calling to the point where people think she's obnoxious, and goes to the temple every month. She's like the perfect Mormon poster child, and she's going straight to the celestial kingdom. My only chance to not be stuck with her for eternity is to make sure I don't go to the celestial kingdom. I'm for sure not going there," Danna said, pointing at the temple.

"Christ is the judge of who goes to the celestial kingdom. You can't guarantee yourself a spot by checking off a list of activities," Maria said.

"My mom must have missed it when they said that at General Conference. You remember General Conference, when they spend two days preaching about the list of activities that gets you to heaven," Danna said.

Maria was watching Danna spiral down into hatred and anger, and she had no idea how to rescue her from her downward slide. At the least, she would defend General Conference. "Of course the General Authorities teach us the practices that help us draw closer to the spirit. But there are also lots of talks about God's unconditional love, and repentance, and becoming Christlike. Those can't be put on a checklist."

"You think becoming Christlike isn't a checklist a teacher can write on a chalkboard? When's the last time you went to Sunday School? And repentance is totally a checklist. My mom taught this great Family Home Evening lesson on repentance once. And yeah, she had a checklist of steps. You know what her example of a sin was? Mom ran out of medicine when we were all sick. She went to the store and bought Tylenol on the Sabbath. You know, it's a sin to buy medicine for your sick kid, so she went through her checklist and repented," Danna said, loudly enough that people at nearby tables turned to look at them.

"There's a difference between going through a checklist and turning your life over to Heavenly Father and asking for his forgiveness," Maria said.

"Whatever."

"Do you feel that God loves you no matter what? You gave such a beautiful sacrament meeting talk about God's love just a few months ago. Do you still believe that?"

For an instant, the anger and hatred dropped out of Danna's eyes, and she became the girl who had first trusted Maria, the one who was hurting and still reaching out for help. Then the pain and vulnerability disappeared behind the mask again.

Danna shrugged.

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"It means it's none of your business."

Maria sat quietly, eating her Frosty and pleading for God to tell her something to say to Danna that would make a difference. God was silent.

After a few minutes, Danna asked Maria a question about the upcoming school year. Maria replied. They woodenly talked about school for a few more minutes before leaving.

Later that night, Maria prayed in bewilderment. Heavenly Father, I couldn't help her. I've been thinking that she was the reason I was Young Women's President, and that being able to help her was one of the good things that could come out of the terrible events in my own family this past year. I wanted to make a difference in her life. Did I do her any good at all?

Maria waited for a warm feeling to tell her that she had indeed planted seeds that would eventually turn Danna around. But instead, only a fragment of scripture drifted into her mind.

I have graven her on the palms of my hands.

Chapter 87

2010-03-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

"Guess what girls? We have a special treat today! Sister Anderson is going to teach our lesson! Let's all be respectful and give her our attention," Megan Campbell said to her class of Beehives. She took a seat in the back of the class while Maria set her scriptures and notes on the small table under the chalkboard and sat down on the metal folding chair.

She looked at the six girls in the class, ranging in age from Stephanie Simmons, who would turn fourteen this week, to Abby Nesbitt, who turned twelve three months ago. She gave them a smile that portrayed more confidence than she felt. Despite her prayers and pondering, she still hadn't felt any flash of inspiration that would help her meld the law of chastity to the healing power of the Atonement.

Talking to Brian hadn't helped much. Essentially, he'd told her that the law of chastity was a guilt trip and he didn't connect it to the healing process he was going through right now. "Mostly the law of chastity was a reminder of how badly I'd been messed up, and how I was continuing to mess up," he'd said, "Christ's Atonement has a lot more hope and healing in it than the law of chastity."

In the end, Maria had prepared a lesson on the healing power of the Atonement, still without any idea of how to override the cupcake lesson from last week. An object lesson was a lot more likely to stick in their memories than a lesson full of lecture and scripture reading.

Her daughter, Ruth, pulled a face at her and giggled. Maria smiled back at her, and the object lesson she needed dropped into her mind. Maria stood up. "Sister Campbell, I forgot to get something from the library. I'll be right back." She dashed out the door, and nearly collided with Tracy Nesbitt.

"Am I late?" Tracy asked.

"Go right in," Maria told her. "I need to make a quick dash to the library."

At the library, Brother Hollis boomed at her, "what can I do for you?"

"I need pictures of the temples," Maria said.

"What?" Brother Hollis asked, cupping his hand around his ear.

"Temples!" Maria shouted.

"Temples! Got a whole stack of them," Brother Hollis said, pulling a two-inch stack of pictures out of a cubbyhole and smacking them down on the counter. "Which one do you need?"

"This will work fine," Maria said, snatching the top half-inch of pictures. She grabbed a black Sharpie and a popsicle stick wrapped in tape out of the bin on the counter and race-walked back to class.

"Sorry about that," Maria said as she entered the room.

"That's like forgetting to turn in your homework, huh mom?" Ruth said.

"Exactly," Maria said, putting the stack of temple pictures face down on the table. "Now, last week you got a treat in class. What was it?"

"Cupcakes," Celia sang out.

"You're supposed to raise your hand," JaNiece said.

"That's right, you got cupcakes. You girls are as sweet as cupcakes. Today we're going to talk about something else that's even more like you," Maria said. She put a row of temple pictures in the chalk tray, then taped more temple pictures to the wall and door. She kept the second copy of the picture of the Salt Lake Temple face down on the table.

"Temples!" Celia shouted.

"That's right, Celia. Tell me about the temple. Who do they belong to?" Maria said.

"Heavenly Father," Stephanie said.

"That's right. Temples are called the House of the Lord, and they belong to Heavenly Father," Maria said.

"You get sealed to your family in the temple," Emily said.

"Temples are really special," Abby Nesbitt said.

"We did baptisms for the dead in the temple," Ruth said.

"Did you all go do baptisms? How did you feel while you were there?" Maria asked.

"Like I didn't want to fight with my brother anymore," Celia said.

JaNiece raised her hand and waited to be called on. "I could feel the Holy Ghost really strong."

"I forgot all the other things I was worried about," Stephanie said.

"I felt like praying," Ruth said.

"When I go to the temple, I feel like Heavenly Father loves me and wants to help me with my struggles. I feel peace and happiness," Maria said. "What about you, Sister Campbell?"

"I feel the spirit really strongly too. I know Heavenly Father wants us to go to the temple often so he can teach us. That's why it's so important to stay worthy and prepare to enter the temple someday," Sister Campbell said.

"Yes, that's right," Maria said. "The temple is so special that we need to prepare to go inside. Now, we talked about how we feel about the temple. How do you think Heavenly Father feels about the temple?"

Dead silence.

"We don't think about it very often, do we?" Maria said.

JaNiece raised her hand. "Heavenly Father loves the temple and thinks it's really special."

"He does. He loves the temples. The temples are the House of the Lord, and he sends his spirit to dwell in the temples," Maria said.

"Heavenly Father thinks they're the most special places on earth," Stephanie said.

"He inspires the builders to make them beautiful," Ruth said.

"That's right, girls. Now, how are you like a temple?" Maria asked.

"Heavenly Father loves us too," Abby said.

"Yes," said Maria. "Let's read a scripture. Turn to First Corinthians, chapter one, verse 19."

Celia read, "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?"

"Thanks, Celia. Did you girls hear that? Your body is a temple because the Holy Ghost dwells in you, just like in the temple. We can feel the spirit strongly in the temple, and each of us also has the gift of the Holy Ghost. Our bodies are temples; we are temples," Maria said.

Stephanie raised her hand and Maria called on her. "That's why if a boy wants you to do something bad, you should tell him that your body is a temple and he doesn't have a recommend."

"You're right. Just like Sister Campbell taught you last week, you shouldn't let boys touch the private parts of your body, or take each others' clothes off, or things like that," Maria said, willing herself not to blush.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the class as the girls looked self-consciously at the floor, punctuated by a nervous giggle or two.

"How does the Lord feel about you?" Maria asked. "We talked about how Heavenly Father loves the temple and sends his spirit to the temple. Does he do that for us?"

"Heavenly Father loves us too, and we should feel the spirit all the time when we're righteous," Emily said.

"Yes, Heavenly Father loves each of you very much. And just like with a temple building, Heavenly Father sends his spirit to dwell in your hearts," Maria said.

"But we have to be worthy," Stephanie said.

"Actually, Heavenly Father loves us no matter what we do," Maria said. "We have to be worthy if we want to hear the promptings of the Holy Ghost, but even if we're not worthy, Heavenly Father still loves us just as much."

"Now, tell me how Heavenly Father would feel if someone did something like this," Maria continued.

Maria took a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and scrawled 'I HATE YOU' across it with the black Sharpie. When she held it up, a few of the girls audibly gasped. No one said anything.

"Would Heavenly Father be mad at the temple?" Maria asked.

The girls shook their heads.

"Would he love the temple any less because someone did something terrible to the temple?"

"He'd be really mad at the person who did that to the temple," Ruth said.

"He would," Maria said. "Would he be mad at the temple?"

The girls shook their heads.

"Can the spirit still be in the temple, even if someone vandalized it?" Maria asked.

"Heavenly Father should send his spirit even stronger, because the temple probably feels bad that someone tried to ruin it," Abby said.

"That's a very good idea, Abby," Maria said. "We talked about how you are a temple; your body is a temple. Like Sister Campbell taught you last week, you should decide to keep your body sacred, and stay morally clean. But sometimes even a temple can be attacked and hurt. There are wicked people in the world, who may try to trick you or force you to do things you don't want to do. If something like that happens to you or to someone you know, it's important to know that Heavenly Father still loves you as much as he loves the temple. He isn't mad at you; he's mad at the person who hurt you."

Maria paused for a second, and met the serious glances the girls aimed back at her. In the back of the room, Maria saw Tracy Nesbitt's eyes glistening with tears.

"If someone spray paints terrible things on the temple, should we clean it up, or pretend nothing happened?"

"Clean it up," came a mumble from several parts of the room.

"That's right. We can't just pretend nothing happened. We need to clean up the temple. This takes time, and it takes help from other people. The temple can't clean itself. If someone does hurt you or a friend like this, it's important to ask for help. If a girl wants to take her clothes off or let a boy touch her, we tell her she needs to repent. The Atonement helps her become clean and pure again. When a person gets hurt like this when she doesn't want it, then we call it healing instead of repentance. Healing is the way the Atonement helps a girl who has been hurt to feel happy and peaceful again."

Maria pulled out the notes for the lesson she'd written about healing. She only had a few minutes left before class ended. Instead of trying to read all the scriptures and General Authority quotes, she only read one.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away," Maria read from Revelation.

"A girl who is tricked or forced by someone who wants to touch her or use her body will have lots of tears. She'll be very scared and confused, and might even feel guilty about what happened to her. Heavenly Father loves her so much that he wants to personally wipe away her tears, and promise that she can heal until there isn't any more sorrow or pain," said Maria.

Maria took the second, unmarked picture of the Salt Lake Temple and set it over the vandalized picture. "Heavenly Father loves you more than he loves any building. No matter what you do, or what someone else does to you, Heavenly Father loves you. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

"Amen," the girls chorused back to her.

"Emily, could you say the closing prayer?" Maria asked.

Emily said the closing prayer. The typical chatter was more subdued than usual as the girls folded up their chairs and got ready to leave.

"Mom? Are you going to get in trouble for writing on the picture?" Ruth asked.

"We'll go to the Distribution Center and buy a replacement this week," Maria said.

The girls were drifting out of the room as Tracy Nesbitt came up to her. "Was that all right?" Maria asked her.

Tracy enveloped her in a hug. Tracy was at least four inches taller than Maria, and quite a bit bigger. Maria recalled the suffocating, surrounded feeling of being smother-hugged by an aunt when she was a little girl.

"It was perfect," Tracy whispered fiercely to Maria.

When she let Maria go, she saw a few tears on Tracy's cheeks, tracing glistening tracks down to the corners of her smile. With a final pat on her arm, Tracy and Abby left.

Bemused, Maria packed up her scriptures and notebook. It was funny – the things you didn't know about your neighbors.

"That was really good. I'm glad you taught it," Megan Campbell said.

"Thanks for being so gracious about it. I only needed to add a few things to what you taught last week," Maria said.

"I needed to hear it," Megan Campbell said.

Ruth walked out of class with Celia, tuning out her chatter. Her mom had been talking about Hannah today. This lesson made the way Lee hurt Hannah more real to Ruth. Usually, Hannah was just the whiney kid sister. But now she was the vandalized temple. Heavenly Father wanted to personally help Hannah feel better. Ruth decided she should find a way to help Hannah too.

Stephanie walked away alone. That was a weird lesson. Everyone knew that if you were righteous enough, bad things didn't happen to you. Why else would you keep the commandments if not to be more blessed than disobedient people? Heavenly Father protected temples. That's why Danna, who was wicked and rebellious, got attacked, while she, Stephanie, was still as pure and virtuous as she knew she should be.

"Did you like this lesson better than last week's lesson?" Tracy asked her daughter, Abby.

"I've never seen anyone scribble on a temple picture before," Abby said. "That was pretty wild."

"That's all?" Tracy asked.

Abby gave her an uncertain look, wondering what her mother wanted her to say.

"Never mind," Tracy said. It was sweet that her daughter was so innocent that she had no idea how much that lesson had meant to her mother.

Chapter 86

2010-03-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Maria checked out the front window again. Danna usually wasn't late for their weekly Frosty and chat, but it was already twenty minutes past. She called the Graysons and asked for Danna.

"Hello?" Danna said on Amanda's cell phone.

"Hi, Danna, this is Sister Anderson. Aren't we supposed to go get a Frosty tonight?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess we can. I thought you wouldn't want to talk to me after I told you I wasn't going to Church anymore."

"I would love to talk to you. We won't talk about attending Church unless you want to, but I still think we should talk. In fact, tonight I need to ask you to help me," Maria said.

"Okay. I'll be over in a few minutes," Danna said.

Danna must have dashed out the door as soon as she pressed the phone's off button, because there was a knock on Maria's door before she'd even gotten to the kitchen to put the phone back.

On the way to Wendy's, Danna chatted happily about Amanda, who was being induced tomorrow. "She's five days past her due date. Brandon keeps telling her to go jump on a trampoline, and Amanda keeps telling him that he's not funny at all. Then he massages her ankles and she forgives him. I don't think Brandon has noticed that Amanda doesn't have much of a sense of humor about being pregnant anymore."

"How are you going to get home from work when Amanda goes on maternity leave?" Maria asked.

"The bus. It will take longer, but that's always a bonus," Danna said.

After they each had their Frosty, Maria asked, "was your mom okay with you staying home from Church on Sunday?"

"She can't do anything about it. I bet she's relieved I'm not there to mess up her image anymore. Brandon said his dad was relieved when he quit trying to go to Church too," Danna said. "If you can't do everything right, it's better not to go at all. It keeps people in nice little boxes. If you aren't sure what you believe, and still go to Church, no one knows what box you fit in."

"Danna, I know people who go to Church without being sure of their beliefs. You don't have to fit in a box to go to Church," Maria said. "And I can't imagine any parent being relieved that their son or daughter doesn't want to go to Church anymore."

Danna shrugged. Maria wished she would go back to arguing about everything. At least she was talking and Maria had a chance of understanding her. Now that she'd shut down about her struggle for faith, Maria had no way to reach her. Maria waited, but Danna didn't add anything.

After a few minutes of silence, Danna said, "you said you wanted to ask my help with something."

"Yes. It has to do with Church. Is that okay?"

"As long as I don't have to go."

Maria wanted to ask Danna if there was anything anyone could have said about the law of chastity that would have helped her feel comforted instead of condemned. Rather than approaching the topic directly, she asked her, "do you remember the evening you got sick at Girls Camp last year?"

"Yeah."

"It was during a fireside."

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what the speaker was talking about?"

"Yeah." Danna wasn't going to make this easy.

"He used an object lesson that suggested there are only two categories of girls under the law of chastity. I think that gives the wrong impression," Maria started.

"No, you don't," Danna snapped. "You spoke that evening too, remember? And you didn't say one word about people like me. No one ever does. We're invisible. All of you want to pretend we don't exist, and the only girls who have been touched and gotten dirty are the ones who wanted it, and every girl who wants to be pure gets to stay pure. I spent years believing that I wanted it because no one ever told me that sometimes it doesn't matter what you want, it happens anyway."

Maria thought of her conversation with Megan. "Danna, people don't believe that assault victims wanted it. They believe that assault victims should simply know that they're as pure as any girl who has never been assaulted."

"That's even dumber," Danna said, stabbing the bottom of her cup with her spoon. "If someone throws a big glob of mud on you, you're not as clean as someone else who didn't get hit with the mud. You're as dirty as a girl who wanted someone to throw mud on her, only you're mad and hurt too. But everyone wants to pretend you don't exist because no one knows how to help you clean off the mud. So you must have wanted the mud, because the only way to clean off the mud is to say you're sorry and repent, but how do you repent when you never wanted the mud in the first place? Saying I'm just as good as any other fairy tale princess in the Church is like saying I should just ignore the mud all over me and pretend it didn't happen. And it did happen. It did. And it hurt. It still hurts." Danna started crying.

Maria slipped over to Danna's side of the booth and put her arms around her. She stroked her hair until Danna calmed down.

"I've learned a lot this past year," Maria told Danna. "If I had to talk about the law of chastity again, I would say completely different things."

"What would you say?" Danna asked.

"I'm still trying to work that out," Maria admitted. "What could I say that would help you?"

Danna straightened up and wiped her face on a napkin. "I don't know. Sometimes I feel like nothing is ever going to help me. I thought you would know something. But there isn't anything, is there?"

"There is, but I'm still trying to work it out," Maria said. She'd wanted Danna's help to write the revised law of chastity lesson for the Beehives on Sunday. It hadn't occurred to her that Danna wouldn't know what she needed to hear any more than Maria knew what she needed to say.

"It's all right," Danna said. "I'm getting used to it. It doesn't matter very much anymore anyway. We ought to get going before it gets too late."

Danna had never cared about getting home late. Maria wiped up the drips on the table as Danna threw their cups away. They went home.

Oh, Heavenly Father, she prayed that evening, I missed another chance to say something that would have helped Danna. And I still don't know how to teach the law of chastity. The Church talks about the law of chastity do assume only two categories – people who want to keep the law of chastity, and people who want to break it. The Church talks and information I've found about victims of sexual abuse don't mention the law of chastity at all. It's like abuse victims are in a completely different category from everyone else who is taught to obey the law of chastity. My lesson is on Sunday. I really, really need some inspiration before then. Please.

Amanda Grayson's daughter was six hours old, and Amanda had slept through half her life. Brandon thought he might have dozed off once or twice, but then his daughter would do something that made him leap to the bassinet to make sure she wasn't in mortal peril. Two times, a noisy sigh had jerked him out of his doze. One time, she'd snorted when she inhaled. Another time, she worked her arm out of the blanket and flailed it around. This time, a coo had him gazing down into the bassinet, hoping she'd do it again.

"It's kind of funny you and your mom can sleep through your breathing, but I can't," Brandon whispered to her as he touched her petal cheek.

She shifted, raising her eyebrows until her forehead wrinkled, but her eyes stayed shut.

There was a light tap on the door, and then it opened. A nurse's aide quietly entered the room with a tray, that she left on Amanda's swing-arm table. "Lunch time," she whispered to Brandon, before tiptoeing back out.

Brandon walked over to see what was on the menu. He was reaching for a cookie when Amanda spoke. "Touch that and die."

"I thought you were asleep," Brandon said, snatching his hand back.

"I am," Amanda said. "But I can sleep and eat at the same time." She carefully adjusted her position and pushed the button on the bed to bring her to a sitting position.

"I didn't get breakfast, you know," Brandon pointed out. Amanda had inhaled everything on the breakfast tray.

"You could go buy yourself something," Amanda said heartlessly, starting on the turkey sandwich.

"I'd have to leave the room," Brandon objected. "What if she does something I need to see? You could share."

"My ab muscles and I just finished a marathon a few hours ago," Amanda said, "we are resting and eating everything we can get our hands on."

The baby squirmed, gave a few grunts, and then filled her diaper with a wet, noisy gurgle.

"Looks like she did something you need to see," Amanda said, opening her apple juice.

"I changed the last one," Brandon said.

"I'll let you have a cookie," Amanda said.

Brandon unwrapped his daughter and started the diaper change. "I can't believe this hasn't killed your appetite."

"I can't see it from here," Amanda said.

Brandon finished cleaning the sticky mess off his daughter about the same time Amanda finished devouring her lunch. He washed his hands, and turned back to Amanda's lunch tray. "That's only half a cookie!"

"I'm hungry. At least I saved you half a cookie," Amanda said. "Hand her to me first, would you?"

Brandon gently picked up the baby and gave her to Amanda. He bit into the cookie while he watched Amanda's face get the same melted love expression that he felt on his own face whenever he looked at the baby. Amanda cooed at her, and the baby blinked.

"I'm going to let her nurse for a while," Amanda said, shifting her hospital gown.

Brandon's stomach, primed by the cookie fragment, let out an audible growl.

"You go get something to eat. I promise to give you a play by play report of everything she does while you're gone," Amanda said.

"I guess I should," Brandon said reluctantly. He found his wallet and headed down to the cafeteria, where he ate as fast as he could.

He came back to the room to find that Amanda had fallen back to sleep, with the baby in her arms. Brandon got the camera out and took pictures, which woke Amanda up. She smiled at him.

"You're a cute dad."

"You're a gorgeous mom."

"Can you believe we've got a baby? It's like we're adults or something," Amanda said.

"Pretty crazy stuff," Brandon said, sitting on the bed next to Amanda. She snuggled into him until he got his arms around both his wife and daughter.

Brandon sat there and savored the fresh, new feeling of wonder that had enveloped him in the delivery room. He felt like he'd been born along with his daughter, and was starting a whole new life alongside her. Already, he couldn't picture a world without her. His life had split in half with his daughter's first cry, and everything that came before became less important than everything that came after.

There was a soft tap on the door, and Amanda called permission to come in.

Lynnette peeked around the door and whispered, "is it okay to visit?"

"Yes!" Amanda gushed.

Lynnette walked in, with Clint following her, carrying a gift bag.

In that instant, Brandon's heart broke wide open for Lynnette and Clint, who didn't have this defining moment in their lives, and he understood why they kept seeking for it. Something could be so pure and life-defining that you kept looking for it no matter how many setbacks you faced. He marveled that they kept hoping. If this moment had been snatched from him, he knew he would never recover enough to try again. And with that flash of self-insight, he realized that Lynnette's faith and hope showed more strength of character than his cynicism.

Lynnette walked towards Amanda, arms held out. Amanda gave her the baby, and Lynnette's expression took on that same look of melted love and adoration. Clint set the gift bag on the floor and hung over his wife's shoulder to memorize the baby's features.

Clint too, Brandon realized. Usually, he thought of Clint as Lynnette's husband, a standard, ordinary Mormon who was nothing special; just a guy with a boring job and a receding hairline. And yet his faith kept trying, right next to his wife. Clint and Lynnette matched. He wondered if he and Amanda would ever match like that. He glanced at her, and saw tears on her cheeks.

"Oh, Amanda, she's perfect," Lynnette said, and it sounded like a prayer.

Clint stuck his hand out towards Brandon. "Congratulations, daddy."

Brandon shook his hand, with a half-smile and an awkward, "thanks."

"But aren't you supposed to still be in labor?" Lynnette asked.

"I was scheduled to be induced this morning, but my water broke late last night. She was born an hour before I would have been induced," Amanda said. "I guess she decided to come on her own schedule after all."

"What did you say you were going to name her?" Clint asked as Lynnette handed him the blanket-wrapped bundle.

"Sophie Samantha Grayson," Brandon answered.

"Sophie Samantha Grayson," Clint repeated. "That's a good name." He touched her gently on the nose. "Baby Sophie."

Lynnette handed Amanda the gift bag. "Presents for you!"

"After everything you brought to the shower, you didn't need to bring anything else," Amanda protested, looking in the bag.

"I didn't give you everything at the shower," Lynnette said.

Amanda took out a pink onesie that said "Daddy's Little Princess," exclaimed over it, and handed it to Brandon. Then she pulled a green blouse out of the bag.

"It will take her a while to grow into that," Brandon observed.

"It's for me," Amanda said. Amanda reached up to hug Lynnette and held on to her a bit longer than necessary. When she let go, Amanda was leaking tears again.

"It's a pretty emotional day, isn't it?" Lynnette asked.

Amanda took a tissue. "I don't know how you do it. I wouldn't have been offended if you hadn't been able to come visit. You look like you're doing okay, but this has to be harder than you make it look."

Lynnette and Clint swapped a significant look.

"We have good news again," Lynnette said, sitting on the bed next to Amanda.

"Really?"

"Yes. LDS Family Services called us about a month ago to tell us that another birth mother had chosen us to adopt her baby. It feels different this time around. With Sarah Louise, I was so excited and hyper that I never really stopped to consider anything. I think on some level, I knew we weren't meant to have her, but I didn't want to slow down enough to hear it. This time around, we both feel more peaceful. I don't know if that's the spirit guaranteeing that this baby is ours, or that we'll be comforted if this adoption doesn't take place either, but I feel more of Heavenly Father's presence about this baby," Lynnette said.

"And the birth mother is different," Clint added. "Sarah's birth mother never wanted to be around us or talk to us about the future or the baby. Like she was already regretting the decision to give up her baby, even as she told us she wanted us to adopt her."

"Tammy, this birth mother, is a lot more involved with us," Lynnette said. "We've been out to lunch twice, and last week she invited us to the twenty-week ultrasound."

"It's a boy," Clint informed them. "We've got his pictures on the fridge." He stood there, beaming.

Brandon stuck out his hand. "Congratulations, daddy."

Clint laughed so loud that Sophie startled before falling back to sleep. "Thanks!"

"What's the safety date?" Amanda asked. "When does it become impossible for the birth mother to ask for the baby back?"

"As soon as she signs the papers at the hospital," Lynnette said. "But we can't finalize the adoption until he's six months old. The adoption agency has to evaluate how we're doing as parents and if we're taking care of him before he will legally be ours. After the adoption is finalized, we can take him to the temple to be sealed to us, and bless him in sacrament meeting."

"We're not telling many people this time," Clint said, rocking Sophie gently. "Even though we feel better about this baby, we'd rather not go through the circus again."

"We won't tell anyone," Amanda said.

"We don't want to steal your thunder," Lynnette said. "We'll let Sophie be the center of attention for another four months until her cousin gets here."

Clint gazed down at Sophie and told her, "and then you'll have a cousin your own age to play with. You'll like that, won't you? You're such an angel. Precious baby, straight from Heavenly Father."

"You'll bless your baby boy when he's six months old?" Brandon asked.

"Yes," said Clint.

"Would you be willing to bless Sophie at the same time?" Brandon asked.

"It would be my honor," Clint said.

"Okay, we'll do it that way," Brandon said. He looked at Amanda, who smiled at him. He smiled back. All those hurt feelings connected to his mission were part of his past life, the one in which he wasn't a father. Sophie shouldn't be cut off from her clan because of something that had happened before she'd been born. It felt right to ask Clint to bless his daughter.

Chapter 85

2010-03-22T05:00:00.000-07:00

Jayden was showing Grandma how to play Candyland. She kept skipping ahead. When she drew the gingerbread man, she tried to ignore it rather than putting her boy clear back on the gingerbread man. Jayden was working hard to teach her the right rules. Dad always made sure they followed the rules.

"Are we almost finished?" Grandma asked brightly. "We can get a cookie as soon as the game is over."

"No, Grandma. We finish up here," Jayden said, pointing to the end of the trail. There were still turns and turns left before they finished the game. "We have a cookie now."

"Not until the game is over," Grandma said. "How about we say the game is over?"

Jayden considered this, then shook his head. "We follow the rules."

Grandma took a card. It had one red square on it. She moved her boy, but she went too many squares.

"Grandma, your boy goes here," Jayden said, pointing to the red square she'd skipped.

"My, aren't you smart?" Grandma said, putting her boy on the right square.

"It's red, Grandma," Jayden explained.

Jayden drew his own card. It had two yellow squares. He showed Grandma how to count two yellow squares. "See? Here is one yellow square. One. And now where's two yellow squares? Here it is!" and Jayden put his boy on the second yellow square.

"Should we see if Carson is up from his nap yet?" Grandma asked.

"Carson can't play Candyland," Jayden said. "He's a baby."

"If he's awake, we might need to put Candyland away," Grandma said.

"He's still asleep. It's your turn, Grandma," Jayden said.

"Oh, good," Grandma said, and drew an orange square.

The phone rang and Grandma answered it while Jayden drew a card with a blue square. He got the fidgets while waiting for Grandma to finish the phone call, and peeked at her card. Her card was a blue square too.

Grandma finally finished the phone call and sat back down at the table. "Guess what, Jayden! You have a new little sister! She's six pounds, thirteen ounces and nineteen inches long. Your dad says she has lots of dark hair and a good set of lungs. Isn't that beautiful? I'm so happy!"

"It's your turn, Grandma," Jayden said. "You draw the blue card now."

Later that day, after finishing Candyland and eating macaroni and cheese with Carson and Grandma, Jayden put his sandals on while Carson got his diaper changed. Grandma was taking them in the car.

Jayden got in his booster seat and waited for Grandma to buckle him in. He had to wait a long time because Grandma had to chase Carson who scooted off on his fire truck as soon as she opened the garage door. Carson screamed while Grandma tried to get him buckled into his car seat.

"Carson likes to play with his fire truck," Jayden explained to Grandma.

"Yes, he does, but it's time to go in the car," said Grandma, holding Carson down with a hand and a knee while she tried to snap his buckles with the other hand.

"Carson, we go in car now," Jayden told him.

Carson screamed until all the buckles were fastened. Then he abruptly quit fighting and sucked his thumb.

"I have a cracker?" Jayden asked as Grandma buckled his seatbelt.

"I'll go get crackers. You boys wait here," Grandma said.

Grandma went back in the house and came out with the whole entire box of crackers. She gave a handful to Jayden, who smiled in delight at so many crackers, and a handful to Carson, who threw them all on the floor and went back to his thumb. Grandma looked at the crackers on the floor, sighed, and then started the car.

Jayden heard something bonk as the car moved. Grandma stopped the car and got out. By craning his neck, Jayden could see Grandma carrying Carson's fire truck.

"Look, Carson! I see your fire truck!" Jayden said, pointing out the window.

Carson started screaming again, trying to wriggle out of his straps to get to his fire truck.

"He wants a fire truck," Jayden explained to Grandma as she got back in the car.

"We're not playing with his fire truck," Grandma said.

Jayden knew that. They were in the car. But Carson still wanted his fire truck.

"I have more crackers?" Jayden asked.

Grandma handed him more crackers.

Carson exchanged his screams for insistent grunts, and the word "cacker." Grandma handed Carson a cracker. He threw it on the floor and sucked his thumb.

"Look at that!" Grandma said brightly, "we actually made it out of the driveway!"

Inside the big, unfamiliar building, Jayden walked next to Grandma with his arms folded. Carson kept trying to run away until Grandma picked him up and carried him. Jayden dropped his good behavior when he saw the buttons on the wall and ran to push them.

"Just push the button by the 'up' arrow, Jayden," Grandma called.

Jayden pushed all the buttons. They lit up red. Carson twisted in Grandma's arms and dove for the buttons. Grandma set him down so Carson could push the buttons too. Carson was doing it wrong. Jayden pushed Carson out of the way with his hip and fixed all the buttons. Carson howled when he finally fell over. Jayden just looked at him, then back at Grandma. Carson should learn to push the buttons the right way and not get in Jayden's way. Grandma sighed and picked up Carson.

When the elevator door opened, Jayden ran to get in. "No, wait, Jayden," Grandma said. "That elevator is going down, and we need to go up."

Jayden was already inside the elevator. The man who was already in the elevator grabbed the door when it started to close. "Oh well," said Grandma, "we'll ride the elevator. At least it keeps you boys confined."

She joined Jayden in the elevator and set Carson down. Carson toddled over and pushed more buttons. Jayden looked at Grandma, but she didn't say anything to Carson. Jayden pushed more buttons too.

"Boys, quit it," Grandma said in her tired voice.

Jayden never could understand why grown-ups didn't like pushing buttons, especially when they lit up in such bright colors, but he quit pushing buttons.

Eventually, they got out of the elevator. After Grandma talked on the phone, a door opened into a big hallway. Carson took off running. Jayden held Grandma's hand. Eventually, Grandma carried Carson again. They went to a door, knocked on it, and went inside.

"Mom! I find you!" Jayden said, dropping Grandma's hand and running to the bed, where he stopped. The bed looked strange, and so did mom. It didn't look like it was quite safe to climb on the bed and hug mom. Mom patted the bed. Jayden climbed up carefully and sat next to her.

"How's my boy?" mom asked, kissing and hugging him.

"We play Candyland with Grandma, and push buttons," Jayden said.

"Sounds like fun," mom said. "Do you want to meet your new baby sister?"

Jayden nodded. Carson grunted as he tried to climb up on mom's other side until dad picked him up and plopped him next to mom. Mom put her arm around Jayden, and dad put a blanket-wrapped bundle in Jayden's and mom's arms.

"This is your baby sister," dad said. "Her name is Chloe Alyssa, and we need to be very soft with her."

Jayden looked at the baby, then at dad and mom. Carson was sucking his thumb and examining the buttons on the bed.

"Soft baby," Jayden said solemnly, and bent down to kiss her hair.

Brian checked his email every even hour, at 8:00, 10:00, noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00. He turned off the computer completely between times so he wouldn't be tempted to check his email any more often. Every time he checked his email, he had to pray to forgive his family, even if they hadn't sent him anything, because just looking at his inbox brought up all the pain and futility of trying to communicate with his family.

A couple days ago, he'd noticed he wasn't getting anything done because he was spending his entire day checking his email, and worrying about the next time he would check his email. That's when he'd come up with the two hour schedule, and so far it was working. He got at least one good hour for every hour he spent looking at his inbox and then praying until he didn't want to travel through the computer and shake some sense into his sisters.

Another thing that was helping was deleting all the email from his family without reading it. Crystal certainly didn't have anything new to say. He'd read several of Heather's increasingly injured emails before deciding there wasn't much point in trying to respond to her either. His mother hadn't sent him anything in days. So far, he'd deleted four emails from Crystal that day, and one from Heather. He'd only read the subject lines, which was enough of a kick in the stomach without reading the emails. Then he went and forgave them in lengthy prayers. Forgiveness was getting easier with practice. He was getting a bit of vindictive pleasure out of forgiving them. They would never admit that they needed forgiving; they would both insist that he deserved everything they said to him. By forgiving them, he was claiming they were doing something wrong, even if they would never agree with him. There was a certain strength in claiming their behavior was wrong, regardless of what they thought of their behavior.

After dinner, Brian booted up the computer for the 8:00 p.m. email check. He looked at bills stacked on the desk while the computer whirred and clicked itself back to life. He brought up the email first thing, like ripping off a bandaid. He deleted the email from Heather without even noticing the subject line, except that it contained the word 'coward' in it.

There was an email from Eric Masters, Crystal's husband. He'd never emailed before. Brian had copied him on the original email to Crystal, but he hadn't seen Eric's name on any of the email exchanges since then. He toyed with the idea of deleting it, but the subject line said "Update on Lee" which sounded calm, not the hysterical accusations he was getting from Crystal and Heather.

Brian opened the email.

To: Brian Anderson
From: Eric Masters
Date: July 30, 2010
Re: Update on Lee

Hey Brian,

I get the impression that Crystal hasn't been telling what's going on, even though I know she's sent you a bunch of emails. Would you do me a favor and forward her emails to me? I'm going to need them in the upcoming custody battle to show the judge that Crystal isn't going to get Lee any help at all and I should get full custody, especially over any medical or disciplinary issues.

I'm sorry to say this to you, but your family is crazy. The police interviewed Lee, and he spilled everything. Then he tried to tell me and Crystal about it, and Crystal went ballistic on him. I finally just packed him up and took him to a hotel. It took me days to coax him to talk again. The police came back for more interviews.

Your Uncle Cliff got arrested a couple days ago. I don't know what all is going on at your parent's house. I only come home for a few minutes at a time when I need to grab something else. Crystal yells at me about kidnapping her son, and I only found out about Cliff by accident. I bet she didn't want me to know, or maybe she's pretending it hasn't really happened. To be honest, I just want out of the Anderson family. I kept thinking that if I kept my mouth shut and went along with things, I could handle it. You hit a limit, you know? I'm out, and I'm taking Lee with me.

I don't know if this will mean anything to you, but I'm sorry about what Lee did to Hannah. He told the police all about it. Not to excuse Lee, but it turns out your Uncle Cliff has been molesting him for years, whenever he lived with your parents. That's where he learned what he did with Hannah. I'm sorry. I could kill Cliff with my bare hands, and I can only imagine how you feel about Lee. I'm going to get him some help. I've talked to the police, some victim's advocates, and Children's Protective Services. I hear all different things about whether or not he can ever get better, but he's my son and I have to try.

If you're as crazy mean as the rest of the Andersons, just delete this email and don't reply. I've had as much as I can take from your sister. But even if you are crazy, I wanted to tell you I'm sorry about what Lee did to Hannah.

Sincerely,
Eric

"Maria!" Brian hollered. "Come read this!"

Noah followed Maria to the office, and Brian shooed him away to get ready for bed while Maria sat down at the computer. When she finished reading it, she stood up and hugged him.

"Yeah," Brian said shakily.

"Has Crystal been sending you emails?" Maria asked.

"Yeah," Brian said.

"You haven't told me about them," Maria said.

"I try not to think about them," Brian said.

"Why don't they care about right and wrong? I mean, Crystal has to disbelieve her own son in order to believe there aren't any problems. How can they do that?"

"Lots of practice," Brian said. "You learn to talk yourself out of seeing problems, and think that smoothing things over is more important than solving a problem. Then you convince yourself that the appearance is the truth."

Maria leaned her head on Brian's chest. "I used to do that."

To: Eric Masters
From: Brian Anderson
Date: July 30, 2010
Re: Update on Lee

Eric,

I'm relieved to get your email. I was really worried about Lee. I don't hate him. I hope you can get him some help. We probably won't see much of you guys for a few years during Hannah's recovery, and after that we'll have to see how things go. She'll start working with a therapist next month.

That's rough about Crystal, but yeah, you need to get a divorce to get Lee out of there. I've deleted most of her emails, but I'll send you whatever I've got left, and anything new she sends my way.

Keep in touch every so often, when you can. Lee's just a kid, and he's got his whole life ahead of him. Don't give up on him, and let him know that we're going to pray for him and hope he can get through all this.

Brian

Brian reread the email. It sounded cordial, but not quite friendly. He didn't want to divulge any new information to Eric, like the fact that they knew Uncle Cliff was the source of the abuse. Anything he said could get shouted out during a family fight, and he didn't want Eric to have anything his family could use as ammunition against him. He was protecting Eric as much as he was protecting himself. If they thought Eric was going behind their backs to collaborate with him, they'd, well, if there was a way to escalate their cruelty, they'd find a way to do it, even if Brian couldn't imagine anything worse than what they were already doing.

He clicked the send button, then shut down the computer until his 10:00 p.m. email check. He started his well-practiced prayer of forgiveness before realizing that he wasn't upset at all. Having even one person validate what he'd said was so comforting and affirming that he didn't feel hurt or angry at all. Instead, he prayed for Eric and Lee.

Chapter 84

2010-03-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

"Do you smell smoke?" Tom Nesbitt asked his wife.

"Yes," said Tracy. "I already checked the kitchen and the iron."

"It doesn't smell like barbecue," Tom said, looking out the window. "Is that the inversion or is it smoky outside?"

"Sirens!" John yelled as he ran past his parents to yank open the front door.

Abby and Davey joined John on the porch as their parents crowded out behind them to see a fire engine and ladder truck turn up their street. More neighbors started pouring onto their porches as a couple of pickup trucks with water tanks in the truck beds followed the big fire trucks.

"Come on! Let's see where they're going!" John yelled, and took off up the street after the fire trucks.

"John! Get back here and stay out of their way!" Tom shouted after his son.

John was already out of earshot.

"That's where they're going," Tracy said, pointing up the hillside. Black smoke billowed up from behind the large homes that were less than two years old.

"I'm going to go talk to Ruth," Abby said, running to join her friend. She and Ruth started walking up the street with several other people from the neighborhood, wanting to know what was going on.

Tom and Tracy met Brian and Maria Anderson on the front sidewalk. Their younger daughter, Hannah, was clinging to her mother and crying.

"Do you think we should go offer to help?" Tom asked.

"They'd probably just tell us to stay out of the way," Brian answered.

"Is her house going to burn down, mom? Is Kennedee's house going to burn down?" Hannah asked.

"The fire trucks are already there," Maria told her daughter.

"The Bakers have that problem with their retaining wall," Tom said to no one in particular.

"We may as well go join the crowd," Tracy said.

The five of them walked up the street, around the corner, and then up the street that led to the cul-de-sac of expensive homes on the hillside. They were stopped by the crowd of neighbors watching the firefighters.

"They're lucky there isn't any wind today," someone commented.

Even without the wind, Tom could feel the heat from the wildfire. The air above the flames was shimmery with heat waves that rose up to the smoke. The entire hillside wasn't ablaze, just the portion behind the Baker's house, their neighbors' on either side, and the empty lot. The dry brush and weeds went up like tinder. The fire truck was laying down a wet line between the residences and the wildfire while the brush units in the pickup trucks fought the actual blaze.

"Do they know what started it?" someone was asking.

"Maybe it was a lightning strike," someone else guessed.

"In this perfect weather?" Tom pointed out.

"Probably kids playing with matches," Brian guessed.

"Dumb kids," come a comment from somewhere.

"Kennedee likes to play camper," Hannah told Maria.

"The little Baker girl?" Tom asked.

"Hannah's friend," Brian confirmed.

"She's always really careful when we play campfire," Hannah said.

"Were you playing campfire today?" Maria asked her, alarmed.

Hannah shook her head. "Not me. But Kennedee likes to play campfire."

Tom whistled. "Bad place to play campfire."

More sirens came screaming up the street, and the crowd of onlookers moved to the sidewalks to let another pickup truck with a water tank get past.

"Have they evacuated everyone, do you think?" Tracy asked.

Sister Nixon, the Relief Society President, came up behind her. "I just got off the phone with Sister Baker. They aren't being evacuated unless the wind picks up. She said the Battalion Chief has been talking to them and doesn't think they need to leave yet. She was also afraid that her daughter, Kennedee, started the fire."

"Poor kid. I bet she's scared to death," Brian commented.

"What can we do to help?" Maria asked.

"Nothing, right now," Sister Nixon answered. "We'll keep in touch, but with some luck and a prayer, the fire won't get any closer to the house than it is right now."

"Those little trucks sure carry a lot of water," Brian said. "Look at that spray."

"Looks like they're making progress," Tom said. "Or at least it doesn't look like it's spreading any further. I bet they contain it and then let it burn itself out."

"Hey, dad, can we go up on the hillside where we can see better?" John asked, popping up with his friend, Jared Call.

"No, you don't go anywhere near that hillside. Stay out of their way," Tom answered.

"We'll stay on that side of the fire," John explained, pointing to an area that had already burned.

"Your dad said no," Tracy told him.

Jared elbowed him. "Let's go see if Dylan will let us in his house, instead. We can watch the fire from his bedroom window."

"They've got enough to worry about. Stay here," Tom said.

The neighbor crowd ebbed and flowed throughout the rest of the afternoon. Some of the children raided their pantries and brought cookies and juice boxes, setting up a picnic on the lawns as they watched the fire. As evening came, the firefighters defeated the fire, and the smoke turned into steam as they drenched the embers, leaving a blackened hillside. Everyone lined the street and applauded as the fire trucks drove away.

"Sister Merrit," Tracy Nesbitt called out, winding through the crowds of people chatting in the foyer after Church.

Monica Merrit turned around.

"Thanks so much for letting us borrow your flags for the ward's Pioneer Days activity," Tracy said. "I've got them in my garage. We can bring them over later today if you'll be home."

"We'll be home. I'm sorry we couldn't stay and help clean up after the activity. We could have taken the flags home and saved you the trip," Monica said.

"Not at all! Wasn't Craig participating in a parade?" Tracy asked.

"Yes, there were six veterans from Craig's unit in the parade, five from Afghanistan and one who served in Iraq a year earlier, plus two Vietnam veterans. It was really neat. Craig held Jackson on his lap the whole time," Monica said, nuzzling the neck of her baby, who laughed and wound his hands into her hair. "Jackson loved it. He's such a ham! Craig said he waved at people through the entire parade route."

"That must have been fun for both of them," Tracy said, patting Jackson's back. "We sure appreciate everything your husband does for our country."

"Thanks," Monica said. "I'm sure glad he's home."

"Did you see the fire yesterday?" Tracy asked her.

"Who didn't? That was scary, wasn't it? Everyone on that street was so lucky that there wasn't any wind," Monica said.

"Let's go, mom," John said, appearing at Tracy's side, swinging his scripture case around.

"Be careful. You're going to hit somebody with those," Tracy told him. She turned back to Monica. ""We'll be over later today with the flags."

"Those were cool!" John said. "Did you see the fire? We should have put out the flags again for the firefighters! Me and Jared are going to go up after Church and see everything that burned. Dylan said he was going to show us where his sister started the fire. She's grounded for the whole rest of her life. Maybe she'd autograph a box of matches for me. Mom, if I sell a box of matches on eBay, would you mail it for me?"

Monica started laughing. Tracy just shook her head.

"Are we leaving yet?" Abby said, joining her mom and brother.

"Hey! I want a cupcake!" John said.

"Too bad. I got it in class," Abby said, shielding her cupcake from her brother.

"Are you going to share?" Davey asked his sister.

"No," said Abby.

"Dad! Make her share!" Davey wailed.

"It's Abby's treat," Tom answered. "We've got cookies and candy at home."

"After you eat lunch," Tracy added.

"After lunch," Tom agreed.

"That's not fair Abby gets a cupcake," John grumbled.

"It was part of our lesson," Abby said, as the five of them left the air conditioned foyer behind for the summer heat and the walk home.

"My teacher doesn't teach about cupcakes," Davey said. "She teaches about Joseph Smith."

"Our teacher says we're like cupcakes, and if we break the law of chastity, that's like having your frosting licked off, and no one wants to eat a cupcake if someone else licked off the frosting. You have to keep the law of chastity or else no one will marry you," Abby said, licking the frosting.

"I'd still eat a cupcake if someone licked off the frosting," John said.

"You would," Abby said with withering scorn.

"Your teacher said what?" Tracy demanded.

"That keeping the law of chastity is like keeping your frosting. The law of chastity means you never do anything until after you're married, because otherwise no one wants you. I mean, you can repent and get new frosting, but it's still a cupcake someone slobbered on," Abby said.

"Was this in Sunday School or Young Women's?" Tracy asked. Tom put a hand on her arm. She shook it off.

"Young Women's," Abby answered, taking a bite of her cupcake.

"Calm down a bit," Tom said quietly, so the children wouldn't hear.

Tracy's lips had disappeared in a thin line. "Who was your teacher today?"

"Sister Campbell. I like her. Did you know her hair is naturally curly? I wish I had naturally curly hair," Abby said.

Tracy waited two hours before making the phone call. On Tom's advice, she called Sister Anderson first. Tracy didn't like confrontation at all, but this was too important to shrug and ignore.

"Hi, Maria. This is Tracy Nesbitt. How are you?"

"Fine, thanks. How are you? How is Abby liking Young Women's?"

"She loves it. She told me about the lesson today, and that's why I'm calling. I don't know how to say this, and I'm not usually the sort of person to call and say something went wrong. I'm really sorry. Abby loves Megan Campbell, and I'm sure she's the neatest person in the world. I don't want you to think I'm mad at anyone or anything, but I had to call," Tracy said, hoping that if she apologized enough it wouldn't sound like criticism.

"I didn't hear the Beehive lesson today," Maria said. "What happened?"

"I guess it sounds like the lesson was on the law of chastity. Megan brought one of those object lessons that go around sometimes. She brought cupcakes and said that keeping the law of chastity was like not getting the frosting licked off. Abby told me about it, so maybe she didn't phrase it exactly like that, but," Tracy said.

Maria interrupted her. "Those are terrible object lessons! Can you imagine how a girl who had been sexually assaulted or abused would feel if she had to hear something like that?"

Tracy was momentarily stunned into silence. "Exactly. Abby didn't think much of it, she was just happy to have a cupcake, but you never know what some of the other girls might have already gone through, or what might happen to them in the future."

"Tracy, thank you so much for telling me. I'll call Megan Campbell. I'm sure she simply didn't think about how that lesson might affect some girls. I'll probably teach another lesson to the Beehives next week. If you'd like to come to class with Abby, you're more than welcome to come. Perhaps you could provide some input."

"I don't think I'd have much to say," Tracy said, "but I could come listen."

"Whatever you're comfortable with," Maria said.

"Okay."

"Thanks again for calling, and for being so polite about it. It's nice to hear about a problem without getting a tongue-lashing along with it," Maria said.

"Oh, I could never do that," Tracy said.

"I know you couldn't. Abby is as sweet as you are. She and Ruth are so full of plans for Girls Camp this year," Maria said.

"Abby is already packing, then she unpacks and does it all over again," Tracy said.

"Do you have a small flowered suitcase with a daisy on the zipper?" Maria asked.

"Yes, do you need to borrow it?" Tracy asked.

"I think we already did. I saw it in Ruth's room and wondered where it came from," Maria said.

They both laughed and chatted about their daughters for a few more minutes before saying good-bye.

Maria hung up the phone after talking with Tracy Nesbitt and began wracking her brains to remember everything she'd ever said to the Young Women about the law of chastity. She pulled her binder out of her Sunday bag and thumbed through the tab for lesson notes. The new Personal Progress value, virtue, had been announced shortly before she'd been called as Young Women's President, and it seemed they'd talked of nothing else for months. Had she ever used an object lesson to teach chastity?

After paging through her notes, Maria satisfied herself that she hadn't personally used an object lesson to illustrate the law of chastity. She thumbed through the activities calendars for the past sixteen months, and didn't see anything. She flipped to the section in the binder about Girls Camp, which was stuffed full with plans for this year's camp. Last year's notes were a dog-eared wad of paper that looked like they'd been taken camping a year ago. There was the service project, and the craft project, and menus, and a list of the injuries and illnesses from last year. Alyssa's skinned knees were on the list, along with Keighlee's insistence she had acute appendicitis after getting into the camp store's stash of candy bars. Savannah's mild sore throat was on the list, and Danna's brief bout with stomach flu.

Danna had only thrown up once, her notes said, at the fireside when Brother Beale was speaking. She'd brought the entire evening to a screeching halt, which was a shame because all four of that evening's speakers spoke about virtue, and Brother Beale was the keynote speaker. In fact, Maria had been one of the speakers that evening. She kept thumbing and found her notes. She'd spoken about virtue, but there was nothing in her talk that looked like it would have hurt an assault victim. Naturally, she hadn't mentioned assault or abuse victims at all. She should have written down what the others had said. She vaguely remembered thinking that Brother Beale had given a powerful talk. Roses, she remembered. Brother Beale had used roses to teach the law of chastity. There were only two roses – the one that was pure and untouched, and the one that was manhandled and ugly. Danna hadn't had stomach flu after all.

Maria started to cry, thinking of how much that object lesson would have hurt Danna. Less than a year ago, Maria had thought it was a powerful teaching tool, and now she thought it was insensitive and clumsy. There was so much more to the law of chastity than being an untouched virgin or a repentant sinner. There had to be more. But for the life of her she couldn't think of what it was or how to teach it.

She didn't know what she would say if she taught a lesson to the Beehives next week on the law of chastity. But what if there was another girl like Danna in the Beehive class? Her breath caught. In four years, Hannah would be the girl in the Beehive class who needed to hear that there was more to the law of chastity than a cupcake could teach.

Besides the bits and pieces Brian shared with her about recovery, everything she'd ever heard about sexual abuse was about prevention, and her reporting responsibilities as a teacher. Beyond that was uncharted territory. Danna tried navigating it alone and gave up. Brian spent years adrift in despair and sin. Hannah had embarked two years ago on her own voyage, without even knowing that there was a farther shore to end her journey.

Maria didn't know how to help an abuse victim, although for Hannah's sake she was determined to learn. But at the very least, she could stop the object lessons in her ward and study out how to teach the law of chastity in a way that helped a secret, silent victim more than it hurt.

"Hi, Megan, this is Maria Anderson. How are you?"

"Fine, thanks," Megan Campbell answered. "Emma finally started nursery. It is so much easier to teach Young Women's without a little monkey climbing all over the classroom."

"I bet it is! I heard you brought cupcakes for your lesson today," Maria said.

"Yep. I couldn't have done that if Emma wasn't in nursery," Megan answered.

"You do a great job, Megan. I know how dedicated you are to your girls, and they love you. I wanted to ask you about your object lesson, though. I completely understand why you brought it. There are bunches of object lessons for teaching the law of chastity. But I've noticed that most of them emphasize never sinning in the first place. I'm afraid that it might chase away girls who feel like they've broken the law of chastity," Maria said.

"Oh no," Megan said, "we talked about repentance. I mean, we didn't talk about repentance much, because these are the twelve and thirteen-year-olds. We ought to be pushing prevention at this age, don't you think? It's better not to sin at all. But I did tell them they could repent and it's like getting new frosting."

"That's great. I'm still a bit concerned that the girls may get the incorrect idea that someone who has to repent is still never quite as good as a girl who never sinned at all. And of course, there are some girls who may be sexually abused, or even raped, who might think they're not as good as a girl who didn't go through those trials," Maria said.

"Well," Megan said slowly, "it is better not to sin than it is to sin and repent, that's pretty obvious. And as for people like victims, I don't think the lesson would have been a problem. I mean, they're as pure as anyone else, so it's not like they have to feel bad about what happened to them or worry they're not as good."

"A victim might still feel like she's not as good. She might feel that she has done something wrong," Maria said.

"Do you really think so? I didn't even think about how a victim might feel," Megan said.

"It's easy to overlook them," Maria said. "Victims keep quiet."

"I didn't even think about victims," Megan repeated. "I just thought the girls would be excited to get a cupcake."

"Would it be all right if I came to your class next week and talked to the girls a little bit about some of these issues?" Maria asked

"I suppose. But remember these are just little kids right now. I'm not sure I'd want someone talking to Emma about sexual abuse and rape when she's only twelve," Megan said.

Danna was twelve; Hannah was five; Brian was five; Rita was ten, Maria mentally listed.

"I'll make sure I speak appropriately for their age," Maria said.

"Okay," Megan said.

"It was good to talk to you," Maria said. "You do a great job, and I'm really looking forward to Girls Camp with you again this year."

Maria chatted with Megan about Girls Camp for a few minutes, and then said good-bye.

Next, she called the Young Women's Secretary to get the list of girls who had been in Beehives this week. If any of them didn't come next week, she wanted to speak to them personally.

Chapter 83

2010-03-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

To: Brian Anderson
From: Heather Ott
Date: July 22, 2010
Re: What are you thinking?

Brian,

You are blowing things out of proportion, and it is going to cause permanent damage in this family. For the sake of discussion, let's say something actually happened between Lee and Hannah. How do you know Hannah didn't start it? How do you know it wasn't just an innocent game of doctor? Kids that age are curious about bodies. Saying a game of doctor is sexual abuse (it makes me sick to even write it) is like saying a picture of a baby in the bathtub is child pornography. It's an overreaction.

Crystal and mom said you mentioned the police. Brian, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it straight out. If you really have gotten the police involved, I'm not sure I ever want to see you again. We're a family, Brian. What gives you the right to tear us apart?

If you act fast, there may be a chance to fix all this. Everyone knows about your mental problems. If you're willing to admit you've been having psychotic episodes and will be starting on anti-hallucinogenic drugs, there's a chance Crystal might someday forgive you, although I bet you'll have to beg and plead for five or six months (you know what she's like and you still went and antagonized her, so you deal with the consequences). You know these kinds of mental disorders are hereditary. Has Hannah seen a psychiatrist yet? No one would blame Hannah if she's psychotic, although no one will ever trust your judgment again for treating her like she was telling the truth.

I'm going to hope that talking to the police was part of a psychotic episode.

Heather

To: Heather Ott
From: Brian Anderson
Date: July 22, 2010
Re: What I was thinking

Heather,

I am not psychotic. Hannah is telling the truth. Do you remember that bad fight a couple years ago when your twins attacked Lee? They were defending Mayla from Lee because he was trying the same things with Mayla that he did with Hannah. Ask them about it, all right? This isn't just Hannah. Lee needs help. They're not going to put a kid that age in jail; they're going to help him.

Why don't any of you care whether or not this is true? All I'm getting from anyone are lectures about loyalty and family. Have any of you considered that it might be true? Maybe real loyalty to family involves acknowledging problems and getting help, rather than smoothing things over with threats and denial. Lee can't get the help he needs unless you guys are willing to admit there's a problem.

Brian.

To: Brian Anderson
From: Heather Ott
Date: July 22, 2010
Re: What I was thinking

Brian,

Don't lecture me about loyalty! You're the one who supposedly went to the police! Talk about betrayal!

I did ask my kids about the fight. Mayla says she doesn't remember any of it. Grady and Hunter didn't have much else to add. It was a stupid childish spat, and I can't believe you're trying to drag my kids into this issue on your side.

Heather

Brian told Maria he needed a few hours alone, and he wasn't in any condition to take himself on a long drive. Maria and Alana packed up all three kids, along with some sandwiches, and left to spend the afternoon at a park. This was his mother-in-law's last day here; she was leaving for California in the morning.

He'd made a mistake. He should have contacted Heather before Crystal did. He could imagine the way Heather asked her kids about the fight with Lee, and why they wouldn't tell her anything. If his daughter kept the truth from him for two years, why would Heather's kids trust her?

His insides were in turmoil. His appointment with his therapist was in two days. Until then, he had to deal with this alone. Maria already had enough to handle; he wouldn't ask her to face his family along with him. This was his punishment for being too cowardly to tell his family why he knew Hannah was telling the truth. He would simply absorb all their anger and denial, and protect Hannah from ever knowing any of it. He'd protect Maria from everything except the bare facts that his family was upset about the coming investigation. He could handle it.

Except he couldn't. He'd known they wouldn't be happy to hear about Lee, but he hadn't anticipated the depth of their emotional brutality towards him. He didn't have his pornography and anger to shield him from pain anymore. Everything they said to him hurt like acid on an open wound. He'd never been as vulnerable in his life as he was during his efforts to heal, repent, and forgive. He craved truth and kindness, but there was none of that in his family. And he was so sick of crying.

God, everyone says you won't give us more than we can handle. I'm at my limit. I can't do this anymore. I really can't.

My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

There's nothing easy about handling life firsthand, instead of blurring it with an addiction, God. My addiction did help. I could avoid things that hurt too much. This hurts too much.

Come unto me.

And I'm angry at them.

Come unto me.

Yeah, I know. Give me a minute.

Brian deleted the emails, and then emptied the trash. He got out his spiral-bound notebook and wrote three pages. He was furious with Crystal, Heather and his mom for the things they said to him. That opened the door to every other fury, and he was angry at his father and uncle all over again too, as if he'd never made the effort to forgive them. It all came washing back over him, doubled by the new assault from his family. The anger gave him the illusion of strength, and he reveled in it for another page.

Underneath the anger, despair was already clawing its way out. His writing slowed down. He was exhausted by the fever-pitch of feeling the cycle of hurt, anger and despair so sharply.

All right, God, how do I do this your way instead of my way? I know how my way ends.

Bring forth the fruits of repentance.

Right, forgiveness. I did that already. It didn't stick very well. I'm angry all over again.

Thou shalt forgive until seventy times seven.

I always thought that scripture meant I had to forgive someone for four hundred and ninety different offenses. You mean I have to forgive them four hundred and ninety times for the same thing?

Brian reread his page of anger from his notebook. He had every right to be angry. But he was so exhausted by it.

Heavenly Father, I want to forgive my entire family for everything they've ever done. I forgive Cliff and dad for abusing me. I forgive mom for trying to smooth things over. I forgive Crystal and Heather for thinking that loyalty is more important than the truth. I'm so tired of being angry at them. You please deal with them. I don't want to think about them anymore.

Brian meant the words almost flippantly, but as he said them, he felt a steady pull on his anger, as if the Lord was trying to physically take the burden from him. He let go, and then sincere words poured forth.

I want to forgive them. I want the peace you promise to true followers of Jesus Christ. I don't want to dwell on the injustices I've suffered, or be weighed down by the anger and despair from anyone else's actions. You want me to have peace, don't you? I've heard about people saying they could have peace in the midst of trials, but I always thought that meant you would help with job loss or sickness or things like that. Can I really have peace even when my family hates me and thinks I'm ripping the family apart for a lie? You really want to give me peace even during something like that? That's the most powerful thing I've ever heard. This is what you mean when you say your yoke is easy and your burden is light, isn't it? We give you our pain and anger, and you give us peace. And all I have to do is forgive them four hundred and ninety times. I guess I've got four hundred and eighty-eight times left.

Brian went on to pray for his wife and children, particularly Hannah. He prayed for his parents and sisters and Lee. Then it seemed his life was so full of blessings that he had to acknowledge them all individually. By the time he finished praying, he felt calm, energized, and amazed at the literal power of God.

Danna was having the best summer of her life. In the mornings, she worked in Sister Tucker's yard. Sister Tucker liked her so much that she recommended her to Sister Hollis. Danna got twenty dollars a week from each of them, which worked out to about a dollar an hour. She didn't care about the money. She had a reason to get out of the house every morning. She loved pulling weeds, pruning flowers, mowing the lawn, and making a yard look beautiful. After cleaning out one of Sister Hollis's flowerbeds, she'd taken the twenty dollars from that week and bought new flowers to replace the ones that had smothered under years of accumulated leaves and lawn clippings. She was proud of that flowerbed.

Sister Hollis always brought her lemonade and made her sit down for a few minutes in the shade while she fussed at her about getting sunstroke, and told her pioneer stories from the family history work she busied herself with incessantly. Sister Tucker would come out to visit with Danna about her cats. Danna knew the names of all four of Sister Tucker's cats, and remembered to ask about Sneakers' hairballs and Loopy's arthritis. Sister Tucker loved her for it. They both praised her work ethic, and raved over her green thumb. Danna lapped it up and loved them back.

About mid-day, Danna would go home to shower and change out of her yard work clothes, light colored t-shirts and denim cut-offs. She'd started out the summer in her regular black clothes, but the heat was too much in dark, heavy clothes. Besides, now that she was seriously saving money, she couldn't afford trendy clothes. Slowly, her wardrobe was shifting towards normal because they were cheaper and more comfortable in the hot weather.

Clothes didn't matter as much to her because she almost never saw her mother. She timed her mid-day showers to coincide with the time her mother usually left the house for errands or lunch dates. Danna left to catch the bus for work before her mother got home. She took a winding bus route to work, which gave her over an hour to nap and listen to music. The bus dropped her off at work early. She would wander through the shops in the nearby strip mall, or go to work early and listen to Tranquilla.

Tranquilla, the regular front desk receptionist, talked about all sorts of topics that Danna would not usually consider fitting for polite company. She talked about her divorce, her son's drug problems that kept him in and out of jail, her daughter's weird roommates, her latest boyfriend, her ex-husband's general idiocy, her faint memories of the hippie commune where she was born and spent her early childhood, her strung out parents who always needed money and a place to stay, her own experiments with drugs and the rehab center that cleaned her out and set her straight, and most often, what Danna should do to avoid having a life like hers.

Listening to Tranquilla had put the lid on Danna's half-formed intentions to run away from home. Tranquilla described the places her son went when he ran away in pursuit of drugs or money, and her dealings with the police over her son. Danna started to realize that she wasn't the most unhappy and messed-up person in the universe. Running away sounded even worse than living at home. She shared that observation with Tranquilla.

"Honey, you sound a hundred times smarter than I was at your age. If the only thing you got against your mom is that she yells at you, then just don't be around her. Most moms don't mind not seeing their teenagers anyway, as long as they know they're busy with good stuff. You save up your money, work hard, get smarter, and find your own place some day. Then you're not a runaway; you're a responsible citizen, and you can't buy something like that on the street corner," Tranquilla said.

That was the day Danna decided her snowboard fund was really for moving out of the house as soon as she graduated from high school. She picked up a brochure advertising apartments, and nearly fell over when she saw the prices. Amanda told her she'd find roommates and split the cost. Danna started saving everything she could anyway. She also called the school and changed her schedule to take the one Advanced Placement class that she could take her junior year. She needed a scholarship too. She was going to college to be a physical therapist, and she was never going to ask her mother for one penny.

Sister Tucker and Sister Hollis fawned over her in the mornings; Tranquilla and Amanda were her cheering section at work; and Sister Anderson was always happy to see her in the evenings she didn't spend at Amanda's house. Danna went home to sleep, and keep up on her chores to avoid antagonizing her mother, and that was all. She'd never been so happy in her life. She almost didn't notice she still didn't have any friends her own age.

Tonight was Thursday, her weekly meeting with Sister Anderson and a Frosty. She slid into the booth across from Sister Anderson, talking about how excited she was for school to start in five weeks.

"Aren't you having a good summer?" Sister Anderson asked.

"The best," Danna said, "but the sooner school starts, the sooner I can graduate and leave home."

"You're rushing your youth away, Danna. Slow down and enjoy it."

Danna simply gave her a look, and dug out another spoonful of chocolate Frosty.

"Being an adult has its own challenges," Sister Anderson persisted.

"Not the same way, though. When you're an adult, people can't tell you what to do all the time. And people respect you instead of telling you that you're too young to understand. When I'm an adult, I'm in charge of my own life, and no one is ever going to boss me around again," Danna said.

Sister Anderson didn't ask who was bossing her around. They'd had more than one discussion about how Danna felt about her mother. Danna spent more time talking about her mother than she spent on all other subjects combined. Only once had they talked about the assault. Every other conversation eventually worked around to her mother.

"There will always be some kind of authority figure, Danna, whether it's a teacher, or a manager, or Church. You'll be surprised at how often adults get bossed around," Sister Anderson said. "You have to learn to work with authority, rather than rejecting it."

Danna shrugged.

"I'm worried you're not being realistic about what life will be like as an adult. True, you do have more freedom, but you also have more responsibility."

"I get to pick what responsibilities I want to have, though. I don't have to do stuff that someone else decides I should do because they've got some weird idea about what will make me happy and what won't," Danna said. "I get to decide what makes me happy."

"You might be surprised when your decisions line up with what people have been telling you all your life," Sister Anderson said. "I know your mother can be a bit overbearing, and you don't always get along, but she really does want what's best for you."

Danna shrugged. "I wasn't talking about my mom. I was talking about Church. They're practically the same thing anyway." She'd started paying more attention to Church recently, and had concluded that, other than the Personal Progress Award, her mother and Church really did want her to be exactly the same person. And if going to Church meant turning out like her mother, she wasn't going to do it.

"It does seem like there are a lot of commandments to obey, doesn't it?" Sister Anderson said.

"Yep, and I don't care anymore."

"What does that mean?" Sister Anderson asked carefully.

"I'm not going to Church anymore. I'm not going to try to pretend to be someone that I'm not. If you're going to go to Church, you have to do certain things and think certain things, and I don't want to be like that anymore. I'm not like the rest of you," Danna said.

"Danna, are you referring to the time you were sexually assaulted? I really think it would help if you talked to the bishop about that. He could do a better job than I did of explaining that you are as virtuous and pure as any of Heavenly Father's daughters. You are like all the girls that go to Church," Sister Anderson said.

"I wasn't talking about that, actually. I mean that people who go to Church have to get all weepy and happy about families, and I don't want a family. I don't want to be my mother's daughter for eternity. It's a sure thing my dad will never notice whether I'm there or not. Stephanie used to like me, but she doesn't anymore. And my little brothers are creeps. I'm never getting married, either." Danna delivered this statement dry-eyed, and with a defiant stare. She was done with crying about the way her family treated her. They didn't want her; she didn't want them. In the division accompanying this emotional divorce, Danna awarded the Church to her family. All she wanted was a place to sleep until she graduated from high school and could get as far away from them as possible without the police hauling her home as a runaway. The heat of her anger and pain were gone, replaced by cold-blooded plans.

To Danna's surprise, Sister Anderson didn't immediately argue with her. She stirred her Frosty and looked confused.

Danna backpedaled a bit. "Most people like families. That's cool if you like your family."

Sister Anderson's eyes shone with tears. "Families can be really hard."

That was all. Once again, Sister Anderson had refused to preach at her, which left Danna with nothing to fight against.

"Taylor's family is neat," Danna offered.

"The Chuffeys are a good family, aren't they? When you go away to college, maybe you could live with Taylor and Jessie," Sister Anderson said.

"I'd like that," Danna said, and the talk turned to college plans.

After they got home, Danna went for a walk to kill another hour before going home. She really had expected Sister Anderson to argue with her more. Questioning the foregone conclusion that everyone wanted an eternal family was practically blasphemous, and Sister Anderson almost agreed with her instead. Sister Anderson hadn't even tried to pressure her to keep coming to Church either. It wouldn't have done any good, but she was surprised that Sister Anderson didn't even try.

She turned another corner, hands deep in her pockets. Maybe part of becoming an adult was people letting you make your own decisions without telling you they were always wrong. She was going to like that part of adulthood. She could do anything she wanted, and it was never going to matter to her again if someone thought it was a sin or a commandment or anything else.

She still had the painting of Christ with the children at the river. That was part of her, not part of Church or part of her family. Her painting and the memory of her experience when she became part of the painting replaced Church completely. Christ loved her no matter what, unlike her family and the Church.

Telling Sister Anderson had been a more important step in quitting Church than actually refusing to attend. Her decision was now final. She felt deeply relieved, and took that to mean that Christ from the painting still loved her even if she didn't go to Church.

But because Sister Anderson hadn't insisted she was wrong and doomed to unhappiness, Danna didn't completely slam the door on the possibility of going back someday. Not now, but someday.

Maria put her keys away and sat down at the table where Noah was coloring a picture of a robot. Noah looked up at her, then handed her a crayon. Maria started coloring with him.

She hadn't seen it coming tonight. That's why she hadn't been able to come up with a decent argument, or even testimony, that would have helped Danna stay in the Church. Danna had made so much progress and cheered up so much over the past month that Maria had assumed she was finding peace, and it turned out she was letting go instead. Rebellion and anger were Danna's efforts to find a place for herself; now that she didn't want a place, there was nothing to fight for. Danna's battle had ended with surrender and plans to abandon the field as soon as possible.

Maria couldn't think of anything that would persuade Danna to keep up the fight. She'd already talked herself hoarse in previous conversations about how the Church doesn't require perfection, but even to herself, it rang hollow. The Church talked about perfection a lot. And she knew what Danna's mother required. Still, there must be something she could have said.

She swapped a purple crayon for a blue crayon, and kept coloring. Noah glanced at her picture once in a while to check her work.

If only she'd been able to bear a powerful and faith-filled testimony about eternal families and how much joy came from them. Wasn't faith the hope that something was true, even if you weren't sure? If you wanted it to be true, then it wasn't hypocrisy to say it was already true.

Maria was hanging onto her own faith, white-knuckled, with both hands. But she couldn't bring herself to argue with Danna about families. She didn't want every family sealed in the temple to be together forever. Her family was forever, but not Peggy Anderson's family. She couldn't picture ever being happy if she lost Noah in the eternities, but she wanted her mother-in-law to lose Brian forever. Her father-in-law had already lost his son forever, in Maria's opinion, even if Harvey Anderson did have a temple recommend and a calling.

But Peggy hadn't committed any sins against Brian that Maria hadn't committed against Hannah, and that's where Maria's hope in eternal families became inconsistent. If Brian didn't want to be with his mother for eternity, then he shouldn't have to be her son in spite of the temple sealing. If Danna felt the same way about her mother, Maria couldn't insist she feel differently. Brian would identify with Danna, and Maria agreed with Brian. But a small, terrified part of her identified with both Peggy Anderson and Carly Simmons, and would be shattered if Hannah didn't want to be her daughter. That part of her wanted her temple covenants to override everything and bind her children to her no matter how badly she failed as a mother. And yet, even if Peggy and Carly had failed as mothers, they still held temple recommends, and were probably as afraid of losing their children as Maria was of losing hers.

What if a temple-sealed, temple recommend holding, eternal family didn't want to be together forever? Everyone knew Heavenly Father wouldn't force spouses to be together forever, but did that apply to parents and children? You can't replace a mother or a daughter the way you could replace a husband or wife, or add a few extras.

No, she couldn't tell Danna that families should want to be together forever. She only wanted her own family to be together forever, but not Peggy's family. It would be hypocrisy, not faith, if she pretended she was any more worthy than Peggy. She wished Danna wanted to talk to someone besides her. She wasn't in any condition to help a struggling young teenager with her faith.

Chapter 82

2010-03-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

"Look at this, Jason. Remember my friend Tori at the hospital? She emailed me this flyer," Nicole said.

Jason took the printout. It was an ad asking for volunteer nurses to work at the Midvalley Medical Clinic in Provo.

"I've never heard of that clinic," Jason said.

"It's still pretty new. It opened about a year ago. Tori said that they're always asking for volunteers at the hospital, and several of the nurses take one shift a week at the clinic. It's one of those free places for people who don't have medical insurance," Nicole said.

"It says here that speaking Spanish is a real plus," Jason said.

"I guess I'm at a minus," Nicole said.

"You want to volunteer?"

"After the baby is a few months old, I'd like to take one shift a week. I can work one of the five to nine evening shifts. It will help me keep my license current and my foot in the door for when I go back to work when the kids are in school," Nicole said.

"I didn't know you wanted to go back to work," Jason said.

"After the children are in school all day, I want to work part-time," Nicole said. "I liked nursing."

"Is it in a safe area of town?" Jason asked.

"It's in Provo," Nicole pointed out.

"There are seedy areas in Provo," Jason said.

Nicole just looked at him.

"Oh, all right, I'm sure it's safe to work the evening shift," Jason said.

"I'll wait until the baby is four or five months old. That will put my start date in January of next year," Nicole said.

"Okay," Jason said.

"That gives me time to take a correspondence course in medical Spanish," Nicole said cheerfully. "I already ordered it."

Brandon demonstrated more stretching exercises for Mr. Dover, and was very polite and restrained as Mr. Dover grumbled and swore under his breath.

"My foot doesn't move that way anymore," he said.

"It will if you repeat these exercises at least twice a day," Brandon said.

Mr. Dover kept grumbling, working at the exercise halfheartedly.

After they finished, Mr. Dover grabbed his crutches and Brandon escorted him out.

"Have a nice evening," Libby, the front desk receptionist, called after him.

Mr. Dover did his best to slam the door.

"One of your happier patients?" Libby asked Brandon.

"Chronic pain never happened to a nicer guy," Brandon said. "Do you have my schedule for tomorrow? I forgot I had a dentist appointment at 8:30. When's my first patient?"

"At 8:30," Libby said. "Want me to cancel it?"

"No, I'll cancel the dentist. My teeth are fine," Brandon said.

Libby snorted at him. "With all the Coke you drink? That stuff rots nails, you know!"

Brandon flashed her a big toothy grin. "You're just jealous because you drink pulverized lawn clippings."

"I like spinach smoothies!" Libby shouted after him as he disappeared down the hall to get his keys.

Brandon picked up dinner from Burger King on his way home. Amanda's latest craving was cheeseburgers with extra pickles and no onions. Brandon loved Amanda's food cravings. They were invariably something unhealthy, and he had to keep his wife company by eating with her. It showed what a supportive husband he was.

He fished a few fries out of the bag. He'd bought her two packages of Lofthouse sugar cookies too. The nicer he was to her, the better he felt about not telling her that he'd gone to see the bishop. He was making it up to her, even though she didn't know it. She would be more disappointed if she found out he'd asked the bishop about blessing the baby and it hadn't gone well than to not know about the interview at all. He never did put up the post in his discussion forum. What if Amanda saw it?

He pulled into the garage and ran into the house. He set the table with real dishes instead of paper plates, and poured their drinks into glasses. He resolved to wait and eat with Amanda, and was only halfway done with his fries when she got home.

"Wow! What's the occasion?" she asked.

"A cheeseburger with extra pickles and no onions," Brandon said, getting her chair for her.

"You spoil me!" Amanda said. "You're making me feel guilty."

"Guilty about what?"

"Promise you won't get mad at me?" Amanda said, unwrapping her cheeseburger.

Brandon put his fries down. "What?"

"You have to promise you won't get mad, first," Amanda said.

"Okay, I promise I won't get mad."

"My mom called last night. We started talking about Lake Powell, and when she mentioned taking your boat and WaveRunners, I didn't exactly tell her no," Amanda said.

"Did you tell her yes?" Brandon asked.

"Not really. But you know my mom. If you don't say 'no' at least three different ways, she thinks you said yes," Amanda said. "You promised you wouldn't get mad!"

"I'm not mad," Brandon said. He wouldn't get mad, and that would completely make it up to Amanda for not telling her about the bishop's interview.

"You're not? Why not?" Amanda asked.

"I love you too much," Brandon said.

"You just feel sorry for me because I can barely waddle and I have elephant ankles," Amanda said.

"That too," Brandon said.

Amanda threw a napkin at him.

"I'll call your mom and tell her that they can't take my boat and WaveRunners," Brandon said.

"Are you going to be nice about it?" Amanda asked.

"I agreed not to get mad at you, not her," Brandon said.

"Then talk to my dad, instead," Amanda said.

"Anything to make you happy," Brandon said.

"You're weirding me out," Amanda said. "I thought you'd be ticked."

"You're going to sit and listen to my side of the phone call, aren't you?" Brandon said.

"Naturally," said Amanda.

Brandon picked up the phone and called. "Hi, Dave, this is Brandon. How are you? Fine, thanks, we're all fine. Amanda's doing great. Nope, still hasn’t had that baby yet. I know! We're going to start charging her womb rent and see if that motivates her to put in an appearance before Amanda sends out a search expedition for her ankles."

Amanda threw another wadded napkin at him.

"I'm calling because Amanda told me she talked to Betty last night, and left her with the wrong impression. It looks like we can't send our boat and WaveRunners to Lake Powell with you guys this year. They're not ready to go, and the boat started acting strange the last time we took it out last September. I'd hate to send you with a boat that's going to quit on you. Repairs could get pretty expensive, so I'll keep it home until we know what's wrong with it. Yeah, I feel really bad about it. Maybe you guys could look into renting a speedboat along with the houseboat? Yeah, yeah, I know. It would be worth the money, though. I mean, otherwise you're trapped on that tiny houseboat with a bunch of obnoxious people and no way off, right? That's worth the money. Yeah, we can't send the WaveRunners either. The trailer Rick dented last year isn't driveable, and we never got them tuned up for this year. No, I appreciate the offer. But you know how Rick drives the WaveRunners. Without me there to fix things up right away, I'd probably have to stick you guys with a pretty hefty repair bill when you got home. No, I don't think I'd consider that our contribution to the annual family vacation. No, I can't imagine Rick really wouldn't drive them, no matter who asked him. Sorry about that. Well, you'll have to spend a bit more this year, I guess. Yeah, it's a hardship, but I don't want my boat and WaveRunners down on Lake Powell without me. Drive the houseboat into cell phone range every so often. We'll leave you a voice message when the baby's born. You take care. Bye."

Amanda raised her eyebrows at him. "That was impressive. I mean, the line about being trapped on the houseboat with obnoxious people was a little much, but other than that you sounded surprisingly reasonable."

"Surprisingly reasonable? Give me some credit! I'm one of the nicest guys I know," Brandon said.

"Did the boat start having problems last September?" Amanda asked.

Brandon shrugged. "Just a little white lie. Everyone knows Rick can't drive a WaveRunner, but I didn't want to tell your dad I don't like the way he drives my boat either."

"You'd better hope they still go to Lake Powell. If they cancel their vacation, you're going to have to bodily throw my mom out of the delivery room," Amanda said.

"Yeah, didn't think of that," Brandon said. Not that it worried him. He'd been polite to Amanda's family about his water equipment. His debt to Amanda was paid. He could be rude again when the baby was born. His mother-in-law didn't like him much anyway.

The second day that Maria's mom, Alana Barrera, was there, they went birthday shopping for Hannah, who was turning eight in two weeks. They were at Joann's Crafts and Fabric, looking at art and craft kits for children, when Alana asked, "have you told anyone else in the family?"

Maria shook her head.

"If everyone is praying for you, maybe good things can happen for you. But if they don't know, they can't pray for you," Alana said.

Maria put back a paint by number kit and walked around the corner to look at rugs and embroidery kits. "Brian doesn't want his family to know very much. He's had to tell them about Hannah because the police will be contacting them anyway. All he would tell me is that his sister is angry and his mom is taking his sister's side. His family isn't handling it very well. I don't know how he would feel about telling my family."

"Maria, I promise you that you will be glad if you tell your family," Alana said.

"I wouldn't mind," Maria said. "I wasn't ready to tell anyone a few months ago, but now I feel it would be all right to tell them. I can't face the idea of repeating the story four times, and it doesn't seem like the sort of thing to put in an email. I don't know how to tell anyone."

"What if I tell them?" Alana asked.

Maria picked up a stained glass painting kit with flowers and butterflies. "Hannah would love this, don't you think?"

"Yes, and she will like the one with the unicorn too," Alana said.

"Should we get her something to paint and something to sew?" Maria asked.

"She would like that," Alana said.

"Could you tell them only about Hannah? Brian's problems are still quite private. You could tell them about Hannah, and ask them to keep it between the adults," Maria said. Maria regretted telling her mother all the details about Brian. It had been such a relief when all the words burst out of her, but the look on Brian's face when she told him about her talk with her mother let her know that she'd crossed a line. Of course they hadn't talked about it since then because they never talked about things that bothered them. Maria silently apologized for the breach of marital privacy by not saying anything else to her mother about Brian. She could ignore the pressure of silence about Brian as long as she could talk about Hannah.

"I will do that," Alana said, slipping an extra kit for making bead jewelry into the cart.

Maria's mother called Maria's sister and three brothers that evening. Maria deliberately stayed away from the office where she couldn't hear her mother repeat over and over again that Hannah had been sexually molested.

The next evening, phone calls started coming. Robert and Carrie told her they had put Hannah's name on the prayer roll in the temple, and asked what else they could do. Terra told her that her niece had been molested several years ago, and offered to ask her sister-in-law if she would talk to Maria about how they had handled it. Maria said yes. Alex offered to hire a bodyguard for Hannah, and he was only half-joking. Her sister, Carmen, called and cried until Maria found herself comforting Carmen. Carmen promised to come to Hannah's baptism, with Jack and her kids. But the oddest phone call came from her younger brother, Juan, who spoke to her quite forcefully about never giving up on Hannah, and then said Rita couldn't talk right now but would send an email.

Rita's email came later that evening.

To: Maria Anderson
From: Rita Barrera
Date: July 21, 2010
Re: Events

Dear Maria,

My heart is breaking for you now. I can't imagine what you are going through, but my mother can. I am a sexual abuse survivor too. I was molested for years by a neighbor boy. I was 10 when it started, and he was 16. It took me almost three years to tell my mother. You see, she was best friends with his mother, and I didn't want to cause a fight with her best friend. Children have strange reasons for keeping secrets from their parents. Your mother said you felt bad that Hannah did not tell you immediately. You can talk to my mother about that, if you want. But it is not because you are a bad mother.

Hannah has a hard road ahead of her. I can tell you more as time goes on. I was a very mixed-up girl, and I did some things as a teenager that caused me and my parents a lot of grief. A lot of it was because of how I felt about myself for being abused. I didn't feel like I could ever be in charge of my own body again. Pain makes people do strange things. Eventually, I learned that I could help myself and get better. But even then, I did not think I would ever be normal, or that a good man would ever want to marry me. Your brother is my own personal miracle, and I thank God for him every day. I know my parents thank God for him too!

Maria, I promise that Jesus will heal your daughter, just as he healed me. It may take longer than you want it to, but it will happen. We should talk regularly. I can tell you the things my parents did that helped me the most, and tell you things not to do. I know you well enough to know that you will already do the thing that matters most – you will love Hannah no matter what.

Also, I already talked to Juan, and we both agree I should fly out for a visit when you and Hannah and Brian want me to come. When I was 15, and being very stupid, what saved me was a Young Women's leader who told me that she had been raped as a teenager. This leader became my role model, because she had the life I wanted, and she'd been through something like what I had been through. I want to spend time with Hannah, and help her see how good life can be. I want her to know that someone who loves her very much survived something like what she has gone through. I believe that will help her. We will talk about the best timing for my visit. I will send her an extra-special birthday gift.

Please give her a hug from me, and also hugs to Ruth and Noah. I love your family very much. Juan and I will pray for you every day.

Love forever,
Rita

Maria read Rita's email four times, and cried harder each time. She went and got Brian and had him read it too. She told him about all the phone calls she'd gotten that evening.

"Aren't they wonderful, Brian? Aren't they all being wonderful?" Maria said.

Brian nodded.

"I think my mother knew about Rita. She promised me that I'd be glad if we told my brothers and sister about Hannah. She must have known," Maria said.

"I like Rita," Brian said.

"Aren't you happy, Brian? Look at how much family support we have!" Maria said. She'd been so nervous to tell anyone about their problems, and it turned out that everyone was supportive and loving. She could talk to people!

Brian wrapped her in a rough hug. "Yes, I'm happy your family is being wonderful. I really am."

Maria hugged him back. "I'm sorry about your family, Brian."

"It's no big deal," Brian said.

"Liar," said Maria.

He shook a couple times, like he started to cry and then stopped.

Maria hugged him harder. "We've got my family, Brian."

"Yeah, we do. You think any of them want to spend Thanksgiving with us?"

Chapter 81

2010-03-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

"This is coming together really well," Maria said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Let's have a closing prayer before the girls get here."

Megan Campbell, the Beehive advisor, offered the closing prayer for their Girls Camp planning meeting. When she finished, the women rearranged the chairs for opening exercises. A couple of Beehives drifted in.

Nicole Benton pulled a chair into a semi-circle next to the chairs Maria was arranging and asked her, "are things all right with Danna? You've been talking to her a lot since the movie last Wednesday. Is it anything I can help with?"

"She's going through a rough time right now, but it isn't anything I can talk about," Maria apologized.

"I'm not prying," Nicole assured her, "you don't have to tell me anything. Do let me know if there's anything I can do. If she comes tonight and you two need to talk, just give me a look, and I'll take over the activity and keep the other girls away so you can have some privacy."

"Thanks, Nicole. I doubt she'll be here tonight because of her job," Maria said.

"Are you all right? Is there any way I can help you?" Nicole asked. "You're doing your usual fantastic job as Young Women's President, but maybe the stress is running you down. I'd be happy to do more."

"You're just a month away from having a baby!" Maria laughed. "I'm fine. Things are a bit stressful. My mother is actually coming out next week for a visit, and I am really looking forward to that."

"I love it when my mom comes to take care of me. She's coming to stay with us for a few days after Jason's paternity leave is over," Nicole said.

Maria asked how she was feeling and if they were ready for a baby, and smiled as Nicole prattled on for a few minutes.

Another concerned inquiry, successfully deflected. People were starting to notice that she was strained, but no one knew what was really troubling her. Maria took her seat as Savannah Nixon got up to conduct opening exercises. Maria was counting the days until her mother arrived. She'd been calling her on the phone daily, but it would be even better to have her here, even though she could only stay for a few days. Maria needed someone to talk to as much as Danna did.

Maria stood up to recite the Young Women's theme with the rest of the girls, her mouth saying the words while her mind went a million miles an hour. Danna had put Maria in a sticky situation, but she didn't see any way out. Danna had been very clear that she didn't want anything she said to get back to her mother, or to be reported to the bishop. Maria agreed, then called her friend who worked as a high school counselor to agonize about her reporting responsibility. Her friend talked her through the mandatory reporter laws, and decided that Maria did not have a legal duty to report the assault on Danna to the police because she had not learned about the episode in her status as a teacher. They also informally concluded that because there was no ongoing abuse, and Danna was an older teenager, they should respect Danna's wishes in order to maintain her trust.

Still, Maria knew she would come unglued if Hannah had talked to another adult and the other adult did not talk to her. Danna insisted her mother knew. Half of Danna's problem was that her mother knew about the assault. Maria reminded herself that she wasn't finding out anything that Danna hadn't already told her mother, except for Danna's negative feelings about her mother. Given how much they used to fight, Danna's mother should already know that Danna wasn't happy about their relationship.

Maria had called her counselor friend twice more since talking to Danna, begging her for advice on how to help Danna. Her friend told her to let Danna talk. Danna was bursting to talk; that much was obvious. She wished she was wiser than she felt. She wished she had someone to talk to.

Her mother was coming. That thought put a smile on her face as they separated for the activity.

"Haven't you had that baby yet?"

"I'm still more than a month away from my due date, mom," Amanda said.

"This is the longest month of my life! I swear it's harder to wait for your baby than it was to wait for my own," her mom said.

"I bet you've just forgotten what the last month of pregnancy is like," Amanda said. She was planted in the recliner with her swollen feet up, a cold can of Coke pressed to her sweaty forehead, and a whale-sized belly cutting off her view of her toes.

"Of course I have," her mom said cheerfully. "Is there anything else the baby needs? I'm going to be at the store tomorrow."

"She's got cases of diapers and wipes, and more clothes than she'll ever wear," Amanda said. "We've got enough stuff to take care of triplets."

"Maybe I'll see if they have any cute blankets. Do you have enough blankets?"

"It's June, mom. We have plenty of blankets for the summer," Amanda said.

"I could crochet another afghan. I'll check on yarn," her mom said.

"We'd love another crocheted baby afghan," Amanda said. Crocheting an afghan might take enough time to deflect a couple of trips to the store.

"Have you chosen a pediatrician?"

"Yes, we have a pediatrician. I asked my neighbor across the street for a suggestion. You remember I told you about her. She's got two little boys and her daughter is due the same week as ours. We're using her pediatrician," said Amanda.

"It sounds like you're all set. I was hoping there was something I could do," her mom said. "I know! When is the baby blessing? I can plan the food for the open house for you."

"Brandon's in charge of the baby blessing. I don't know anything about it," Amanda said.

"He ought to tell you when it is. August would be too soon. You don't want to wait too far into the fall, though, because that's flu season and someone is bound to come to the blessing sick. September might be a good month," her mom mused.

"I don't even know if we're going to bless her, mom. Like I said, it's up to Brandon," said Amanda.

"I wasn't expecting Brandon to bless her. Didn't he already ask his father to bless her?"

"He specifically said he isn't going to ask his dad to bless her," Amanda said, before realizing that was probably a detail she should have kept to herself.

"Why on earth would he say that? Does he want your father to bless her?" her mom asked.

"It's up to Brandon," Amanda repeated stubbornly.

"Why don't you ask him?" her mom said.

Because he gets snippy and I don't want a fight when I'm feeling like this. "It's not urgent, mom. She's not even here yet," Amanda said.

"It would be nice if we could get things planned ahead of time," her mom said.

"We'll give you plenty of notice," Amanda said.

"Speaking of planning things, we've got everything planned for Lake Powell. Are you sure you don't want to come? There would be plenty of people to help with the baby," her mom said.

"I'm due that week, mom," Amanda said. Amanda thought the irony was delicious; her grandbaby-obsessed mother wasn't going to let something like her granddaughter's birth interrupt her annual week at Lake Powell. Honestly, she didn't mind. Even though their relationship had improved recently, she didn't really want her mother camped out in the delivery room.

"Well, if she comes early and you're feeling up to it, just let us know. We can squeeze you in somewhere!" her mom said.

"Probably not, but thanks for the invitation. Are you still going to go water-skiing this year?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't we?" her mom asked.

"Brandon didn't tell you that our boat isn't available?" Amanda asked, wishing she hadn't said anything. She shouldn't be talking to anyone tonight. Her brain wasn't working fast enough to keep her mouth of trouble.

"Why wouldn't your boat be available? Your dad can drive it as well as Brandon," her mom said.

"We haven't taken it out this year at all. It isn't tuned up or anything," Amanda said.

"That's no problem. We can take care of tuning it up," her mom said. "You had me worried for a minute!"

"Yeah, sorry," said Amanda.

"What about the WaveRunners? Do those need to be tuned up too?"

"Yes. But you definitely can't take those. We never replaced the trailer that Rick dented," Amanda said, hoping to save Brandon's WaveRunners. He was already going to be upset she'd practically given them permission to take his boat.

"We'll rent a trailer. That will be lots cheaper than renting WaveRunners. Of course you won't have to help pay for the trailer rental. That will be our treat," her mom said.

"Thanks, mom. I'd better let you go. Thanks for calling," Amanda said. She had to get off the phone before her mom talked her into agreeing that Brandon would tow the WaveRunners to Lake Powell for them.

"Take care of yourself, darling! I'm sure your dad will be over in the next week or two to get the boat and WaveRunners tuned up," said her mom.

"I'll let Brandon know," Amanda said weakly. "Bye." She tossed the handset on the floor and wished she hadn't answered the phone at all. She'd play the pregnancy pity card. It wouldn't work. Brandon was still going to take her head off.

Brian hung up the phone and went to help Maria supervise bedtime. The kids were old enough to not need much supervision, but Noah still liked bedtime stories, and Hannah liked to be tucked in. Ruth didn't have to go to bed yet, but was already in her pajamas, curled up on her bed with a book.

After the kids were in their rooms, Brian walked back to the kitchen with Maria. "That was Officer Pailey on the phone," Brian said.

"What did she say?"

"That they reviewed the file and are sending it to Michigan for further action," said Brian.

"We ought to let your family know what's going on," Maria said.

"Yeah, I know," Brian said.

"It will be all right, honey. They might be a little surprised at first, but once Lee tells them the truth, they'll be glad this all came out into the open so they can get Lee some help. For all we know, Cliff is still abusing him. We should have told them about our suspicions when Hannah first told us a couple weeks ago," Maria said.

"Yeah, I know," Brian said again.

"Are you going to call them?" Maria asked.

"No, I'll send an email," Brian said.

"Okay," said Maria.

Brian didn't move.

"Are you going to send it tonight?" Maria asked.

"I guess I should," Brian said.

"Do you want some help?" Maria asked.

"I'll go write it. You can read it before I send it out and make suggestions," Brian said.

"That sounds good," Maria said.

Brian still sat there.

"Honey?"

"Yeah, I know." Brian finally got off the stool and walked slowly down the hall to the home office. He really, really, really wished that Hannah had been molested by a complete stranger, and not by his nephew. Well, he wished Hannah hadn't been molested at all, but if it had to happen, it would have been easier to deal with the aftermath if it hadn't been a relative.

He opened his email and started typing.

To: Crystal Masters, Eric Masters
From: Brian Anderson
Date: June 28, 2010
Re: Bad news

Hi Crystal and Eric,

I know we haven't had much contact since that issue last Thanksgiving, but I hope we can let bygones be bygones. I don't have any hard feelings against you for the things you said, or for not sending us a Christmas card. I hope you don't have any hard feelings either. There's been this situation come up. I wanted to give you a heads-up before the police contacted you.

It appears that a couple of years ago, Lee tried some inappropriate activities with Hannah. I know Lee was just a kid. It was the year Lee was nine and Hannah was five. We're not angry at Lee at all. Like I said, he was just a kid. But because the activities were sexual, a therapist had to report them to the police. The police interviewed Hannah, and sent the report to Michigan. I expect the police will come talk to Lee. Our police officers were really good about the interview. Tell Lee it isn't something he needs to be scared about. The police officers can probably give you some advice about getting Lee some help.

Anyway, I want you to know that we love you guys, and wish you all the best. This whole thing is kind of touchy, I know. I'm sending you this email because I don't want it to be a surprise when the police show up. Let me know if there's any way we can help. We love Lee, and hope he'll be okay.

Brian

Brian waited as Maria read the email.

"Aren't you going to mention Uncle Cliff?" Maria asked.

"We'll let Lee do that," Brian said. "The police are going to assume that Lee was acting out sexually because he's been molested. They'll find out about Uncle Cliff. I'd rather that come from the police and not from us."

"You're nervous about this, aren't you?"

"They're going to be angry," Brian said.

"I can't imagine that," Maria said. "They'll be shocked, but once they know that it's true, they'll calm down and get Lee the help that he needs. They'll be grateful to us for helping them put a stop to whatever Uncle Cliff might still be doing."

"Right," said Brian morosely. "Should I send it?"

"It sounds fine to me."

Brian clicked the send button.

To: Brian Anderson
From: Crystal Masters
Cc: Eric Masters
Date: June 29, 2010
Re: Bad news

Brian,

I'm not the sort of person to swear, and that's the only reason I'm not telling you exactly what I think of you and your daughter's self-serving lies. If anything did go on between her and Lee (which I doubt), I bet it was all her idea. If the police really do get involved in this, I will sue you for everything you have.

You stay away from me and my family.

Crystal

To: Brian Anderson
From: Peggy Anderson
Date: June 29, 2010
Re: Issue with Crystal

Dear Son,

I'm sure you got Crystal's email by now. She told me about the email you sent. I did try to calm her down and let me handle it, but you know what she's like when she gets upset. She's a regular mama bear! I hope you won't take anything she says personally. It's just that this is the third time she's had to deal with a false accusation against Lee.

Do you remember the Risleys? Sister Risley really got offended when I was Primary President and I called her to be a teacher instead of my counselor. They haven't liked us since then. About two years ago, her granddaughter started spreading some filthy lies about Lee. Eventually, of course, the little girl confessed that it was all her idea to do those things, or maybe she said she made it all up. I don't really remember. Their family actually moved out of the ward instead of apologizing to us! We would have forgiven them, you know.

Then a few months ago, some of Crystal's neighbors (I don't think you know them), started making the same horrid accusations. No one believed them, of course. They aren't the sort of family you can believe about anything. The wife in that family does drugs, you know. Her little girl probably just wanted the attention.

Please don't tell Crystal that I told you any of this. She was terribly upset by them, and was only beginning to calm down and be happy again. I'm only telling you so you can understand her reaction and how much you hurt her. I'm sure if you knew how much you hurt her, you never would have sent that email. I am very shocked and disappointed that you went to the police, son. If there is a problem, we should work it out in the family. There's no reason to be airing dirty laundry for everyone to see.

Call the police back and let them know that Hannah is a habitual liar and you're sorry you troubled them. You can't even imagine the damage a false accusation like this is going to do to the family. Crystal and I are trying to keep the news from your dad. If he finds out, I don't even want to think about the consequences.

Please do the right thing, son.

Love,
Mom

Brian closed the email. He didn't want Maria to read them. He'd just tell her that Crystal was upset and his mom was in denial, and he'd deal with it. This was his family, after all. He wondered if he could track down the Risley's phone number.

The shudders hit hard, giving him a few seconds warning before the sobs erupted. He stumbled to the office door, closed it, locked it, and went back to the chair, where he doubled over in a cathartic earthquake of tears. He'd been right to never confide that he'd been abused to any of his relatives, even his mother. He'd been right. He choked on the grief of being right.

Chapter 80

2010-03-04T05:00:00.000-08:00

Brandon, dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, headed out the front door. "I've got to make a stop somewhere. I won't be very long," he told Amanda as he breezed past.

"Are you going to the store? Because we need cereal," Amanda said.

"I can go to the store," Brandon said.

"Only if you'll already be there," Amanda said. "Are you going to the store?"

"Yeah, I'm going to the store. I need to pick up some shoe inserts for a patient. They were out of them at the clinic," Brandon said.

"Okay. I'm going to put my feet up," Amanda said.

"You take care of yourself. Do you want some shoe inserts too?" Brandon asked.

"My feet are so swollen right now that shoe inserts wouldn't fit," Amanda said. "Otherwise I'd come to the store with you."

"You baby those feet, honey. I wouldn't think of asking you to walk around a store right now," Brandon said.

"You're sweet," Amanda said.

Brandon walked back over to the recliner and kissed Amanda. "See you soon."

"Bye."

Brandon drove down the street, around the corner, and reached the Church before the Blazer's air conditioner produced any cool air. He parked next to the other cars in the parking lot, and walked into a Church for the first time in six years. The air conditioning hit him like a wall. It wasn't only the air conditioning. A store wouldn't feel quite that way, no matter how well the air conditioner was working. The Church carried a sense of something larger than life that drew him and repelled him at the same time. He'd forgotten that feeling.

Brandon walked around the Church until he found the bishop's office labeled Willow Bend, and sat down in a padded folding chair outside the closed door and looked at the bulletin board. Half of it was covered in photos of teenagers from youth activities. The other half was covered in flyers for Church service missionary opportunities, employment help, BYU Independent Study information, and a list of tips for emergency preparedness and food storage. A handwritten card displayed the names and phone numbers of the missionaries currently assigned to their ward.

The bishop's door opened, and Brandon stood up, trying to look nonchalant. Five minutes. He was going to be here long enough for the bishop to say yes or no about blessing his baby, and he would be gone. Three men in dark suits came out of the office. One man told the other two men about a couple of families they should visit, and a calling to extend during a visit. The other two men nodded at Brandon politely as they walked out together.

The other man smiled at Brandon and extended his hand. "You must be Brother Grayson. I'm Bishop Bones. I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Come on in."

"Just call me Brandon," Brandon said as he shook his hand and walked into the office. There was a desk, several folding chairs, and a very ratty looking sofa. A print of the First Presidency hung on the painted cinderblock wall in a cheap frame, next to a picture of the Savior. A whiteboard covered one entire wall, with names and callings arranged under neat headings.

"I'm glad to meet you," Bishop Bones said. "Do you mind if we start with a prayer?"

"Uh, if you say it," Brandon said. He folded his arms and closed his eyes while the bishop thanked the Lord for various blessings and asked that the spirit would be with them during this meeting.

Brandon opened his eyes at the 'amen.' He'd planned on blurting out his question immediately, but the prayer put him off guard and he didn't get a chance to speak first.

"Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?" Bishop Bones asked. "I know you and your wife moved in a little over a year ago. Where did you move from?"

"We'd been living in an apartment in Salt Lake. We both graduated from the U at the same time. We worked a couple years, and then decided to buy a home," Brandon said. "We got a good price because the market was starting to crash."

"That real estate bubble came down pretty hard, didn't it?" the bishop said. "Is your job secure? Are either you or your wife worried about being out of work?"

"Our jobs are fine. My clinic isn't hiring anyone new, but jobs in the medical field are pretty stable," Brandon said.

"We've sure appreciated your wife's willingness to help out with a couple of medical issues in the ward," Bishop Bones said. "Our Relief Society President, Sister Nixon, thinks the world of your wife. She says Amanda has a great bedside manner."

"Thanks," Brandon said. It hadn't occurred to him that Amanda would be a topic of discussion between the bishop and Relief Society President, but he shouldn't be surprised. It was all part of the Mormon machine.

The bishop asked a few more questions about life, how Amanda was feeling, if they were ready for a baby, then settled back and asked, "what can I help you with tonight?"

The conversation had already gone past the five minutes Brandon had allotted. He got right to the point. "We're having a baby in a month. I was wondering if I could bless the baby or not."

"Have you been ordained an elder?" the bishop asked.

"Yeah," said Brandon.

"To serve a mission?" Bishop Bones asked.

"Yes," said Brandon with hostility, daring the bishop to ask about his mission.

"As a Melchizedek Priesthood holder, it's possible you could bless your daughter. If you don't mind, I need to ask a few questions to see if you're still in good standing," the bishop said.

This is where Brandon was going to get grilled about not paying tithing and whether or not he drank coffee. He didn't drink coffee, the stuff tasted like motor oil no matter how good it smelled, but he toyed with the idea of saying he did.

"Do you keep the law of chastity?" the bishop asked.

Wow. Yeah. Mormons don't mince around those delicate topics.

"Yes, I keep the law of chastity," Brandon said. He did, too.

"Do you affiliate with groups whose teachings are directly opposed to the teachings of the Church?" the bishop asked.

"Uh, what's that mean?" Brandon asked.

"It means I need to know if you are actively anti-Mormon, or simply inactive. Are you a member of any apostate groups that attack the Church, or try to persuade others to attack the Church?" Bishop Bones asked.

"Aren't you going to ask me if I pay tithing?" Brandon asked.

Bishop Bones smiled at him. "I know you don't pay tithing, Brandon. You can bless your baby even if you don't pay tithing. I'm more concerned about whether or not you mock priesthood ordinances, openly criticize the Brethren, ridicule the Church and its members, or encourage other people to do so."

Brandon was silent. The bishop had listed the main activities of a couple of discussion forums that he frequented. He didn't visit those sites as often anymore, but he hadn't abandoned them either.

"I'm on some message boards on the Internet," Brandon admitted.

"Can you tell me about them?" the bishop asked.

Why not? If nothing else, telling the discussion forum about this interview would make a good thread. He loved reading the threads about interviews with priesthood leaders. They were usually the funniest, or the most sarcastic anyway.

"They're for people who have questions about the Mormon Church that can't get answered any other way," Brandon said. "Sometimes they get a little dicey, but we're just looking for the truth, rather than the whitewashed stuff you get when you ask someone at Church."

"There's nothing wrong with searching for truth," the bishop said. "I understand some people enjoy discussing Church history and doctrine in more depth than we cover in Sunday School. Can you describe the tone of these websites for me? Are they respectful of priesthood ordinances and priesthood leaders?"

There it was again; the Church's mindless insistence that priesthood leaders must be worshipped and revered, no matter what. This was exactly why Brandon enjoyed the threads about interviews with priesthood leaders more than any other discussions. Priesthood leaders were as human as anyone else, and insisting that they never be criticized was a violation of his rights of free speech.

"Actually, bishop, you guys aren't perfect just because you've got the priesthood, and we're not afraid to say so. There are a lot of people who have been hurt by heavy-handed priesthood leaders, and they're looking for a little support and encouragement. We give it to them, since they can't find it at Church," Brandon said.

Bishop Bones regarded him silently for a few seconds before saying, "I know I'm far from perfect. There are times I've been heavy-handed, especially when I was new in this calling. I've apologized when I've recognized I've done something wrong. The reason I asked is because you are the priesthood leader in your home, asking for the opportunity to participate in a priesthood ordinance. I want to know if you respect your own role as priesthood leader, and the sacredness of the ordinance you want to perform."

"No," Brandon objected, "you were asking if I'm willing to take the blame and say I was wrong every single time I butted heads with a priesthood leader. Sometimes I was right, you know. The other guy can be wrong sometimes too."

"Do you want to tell me about the times you butted heads with a priesthood leader?" the bishop asked.

Brandon snorted. "Why? So you can tell me I was wrong too? Look, I really don't care about the baby blessing, all right? I thought it would make my wife happy, but let's just forget it. Sorry I wasted your time."

Bishop Bones stood up and offered to shake hands as Brandon left, but Brandon walked right past him.

He slammed the door when he got home and sat down at his computer. He logged on to his favorite discussion forum and clicked on the button to start a new topic. He titled it "Can't bless my baby because I won't kow-tow to a priesthood leader" and started typing up a witty and incisive description of his conversation with the bishop.

After it was finished, he read back over it. He already knew what the comments on his new thread would look like. They'd give him cyber-applause for standing up for himself and refusing to buy into the groupthink mindset. They'd offer cynical stories of their own about their own bishops. They'd talk about how blessing a baby was as pointless as reading the baby's horoscope.

He read his post a third time. He picked out two sentences that were probably over the top in describing the bishop's behavior and deleted them. He added "I wished I'd said" to a brilliant retort that he hadn't actually said but had composed on the short drive home. He read it again. Without those two sentences blaming the whole thing on the bishop, his post sounded whiney.

"Honey," Amanda called from the kitchen. "Where's the cereal?"

Brandon hit the delete key. He'd try the post again later.

"Cereal?" he called back, before remembering that he'd told his wife he was going to the store.

"I thought you went to the store," Amanda said, coming in to the den.

Brandon hastily logged out of the website and switched to a news site.

"What were you looking at?" Amanda asked.

"Reading the news," Brandon said.

"No you weren't," Amanda said.

Amanda knew he was a member of the website he'd just left, that wasn't a secret. The secret was why he'd come home and immediately gotten on the website. Amanda asked too many questions. If she started prying, she was going to find out he'd talked to the bishop tonight.

"Yeah, I'm reading the news," Brandon said, and pointedly opened up a news story. "I'm sorry I forgot the cereal."

"That's weird you only had two things to buy and you forgot one of them," Amanda said.

"I said I was sorry," Brandon said.

"Okay," Amanda said, and went back to the recliner to put her feet up again.

When Sister Anderson called and asked her if she'd rather go for a walk, or go get a milkshake, Danna chose the milkshake. She didn't want to walk around the neighborhood with Sister Anderson where her mother might see them together and ask if Danna was getting her Personal Progress Award after all.

Sister Anderson picked her up and they drove to Wendy's where they each got a large chocolate Frosty. They chatted about jobs for a few minutes. Danna wasn't having any luck finding babysitting jobs this summer, but Sister Tucker wanted her to work on her yard again this year.

"Do you like gardening?" Sister Anderson asked her.

"It's better than staying home," Danna said.

"How are things at home?" Sister Anderson asked.

Danna shrugged. "Same as always."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't talk to them; they don't talk to me," Danna said.

"Have you thought about what I suggested last week?" Sister Anderson asked her.

"I am not talking to the bishop," Danna insisted.

"Is there a reason? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Sister Anderson said.

Danna considered. She did have a reason, and she didn't want to tell her. But this was Sister Anderson, who said her mother was wrong, and who didn't lecture her about hating her mother. Danna wasn't quite sure how to interact with someone as different as Sister Anderson, but so far it had been okay to confide in her.

Danna decided to risk it. "He's a man."

"All priesthood leaders are men," Sister Anderson said.

"Yeah, I know."

Sister Anderson looked confused, and Danna tried to explain further. "You know what guys are like. He probably likes his wife's, you know," and Danna pointed at her chest.

Sister Anderson looked like a light bulb went on. "You're worried he's like those boys who attacked you."

"He's a man," Danna repeated. "I've been to Young Women's lessons enough to know it's our fault if guys have dirty thoughts about us because they can't help it. I bet the bishop can't help it either."

"Danna, guys grow up. They can control their thoughts. I promise you the bishop does not have dirty thoughts about you. It's like your father. Your father doesn't have dirty thoughts about you," Sister Anderson said.

"My father won't even look at me," Danna said. "I'm not going to talk to the bishop."

"All right. I want you to know that I believe the bishop looks at you and sees a person he loves very much, and he doesn't have dirty thoughts about you. You don't have to talk to him if you don't want to, though," Sister Anderson said.

Danna relaxed. Confiding in Sister Anderson had turned out fine again.

"Do you want to talk to a school counselor? I know the counselor at your high school. She's a very nice woman, and she can talk to you during summer," Sister Anderson said.

"Would she have to call my mom?" Danna asked.

"Probably," said Sister Anderson.

"Then I don't want to talk to her."

"All right. Is there anyone you want to talk to?" Sister Anderson said.

Danna shrugged and tried to look like it didn't matter very much. "I kind of like talking to you."

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"All right. We can talk. We'll get a Frosty every week," Sister Anderson said.

They talked. Or rather, Danna talked and Sister Anderson listened.

Brian was having no luck with giving himself pep talks about quitting pornography and temper explosions. Everything he said to himself sounded phony. He didn't have any staying power with a spiritual resolution. Maria was the spiritual one in their home. He'd resolved to quit porn and never get angry again so many times that he'd worn out the words. They didn't have any meaning to him anymore.

The most incredible experience of my life left me with the definite impression to bring forth the fruits of repentance, and I can't even figure out how to forsake my sins, Brian groused to himself. Eight days without using porn or losing my temper. Congratulations to me. That means I'm eight days closer to using porn or losing my temper again, because it's going to happen eventually. I know myself too well to expect anything else.

His therapist had advised him to move on to something else when he got stuck, rather than obsessing about a problem. Moving on sounded like a good idea. He put quitting his sins on the back burner, and turned back to the question of what else repentance and being forgiven required from him. Unfortunately, the answer to that question was simple, and completely impossible. He had to forgive other people.

Brian did not want to forgive other people, specifically his father and uncle. They didn't deserve forgiveness. They'd never suffered for their sins they way they'd made him suffer. His anger at them actually gave him strength. Anger was powerful. When he was angry, no one dared to hurt him. Anger was a shield that protected him and he would never put his down his shield. Forgiving them would make him defenseless again, because the anger would be gone.

Anger was also the sword that hurt his daughter. Brian dropped his head in his hands. Fine. If he had to do it, he'd give it a shot.

Brian got down on his knees and prayed, "Heavenly Father," and then he stopped. He couldn't even make his mind think words of forgiveness. He couldn't pray a lie. He didn't want to forgive them, and likely never would. But since he was already on his knees, he would pray about other things.

Brian prayed about his experience last week, when he'd felt forgiven. He thanked God for forgiveness, and then wept when he admitted he was failing to bring forth the fruits of repentance. He broke his heart about the way he'd treated his wife and children. He poured out his soul about how much Hannah needed him, and how he was failing her again. He begged God to turn him into a different person. And then his love for his family overwhelmed his anger at his father and uncle, and he prayed to forgive them. The words weren't a lie this time. He truly wanted to forgive them. Not because they deserved it, but because his family needed a husband and father who was capable of forgiveness.

When Brian finished the prayer, he stayed on his knees for a few minutes. The feeling of being scraped clean and refilled had returned, as strong as it had been on the night he'd first been forgiven.

Chapter 79

2010-03-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

"Hello," Brandon said as he answered the phone.

"Hello, son, this is your father," his father said.

"I know, dad. I have caller ID. Everyone has caller ID now," Brandon said.

"It might have been your mother," his father said.

"You're right, dad. Thanks for identifying yourself," Brandon said.

"How are you?" his father asked.

"Fine, thanks. How are you?"

"We're doing fine too. I needed to ask your advice on something, if that's all right," his father said.

"Go ahead," said Brandon.

"I was pulling weeds in the garden today when I threw out my back. I've been lying around the house all day on ibuprofen and a heating pad. Am I doing the right thing?" his father asked.

"That sounds fine for treating the initial injury," Brandon said. "It's most likely a pulled muscle. By tomorrow, you need to be walking frequently and doing some gentle stretches. Inactivity doesn't help a back muscle heal, but if you do something that makes it hurt worse, then stop. Keep taking ibuprofen if you need it for the pain. After today, try cold packs instead of heat. I can email you some diagrams of stretches and exercises you can work at."

"Thanks, son, I really appreciate it. It's nice to have a physical therapist in the family," his father said.

"Yeah, dad, no problem. If you can't open the email I send you with the stretches, just look it up on the Internet," Brandon said.

"All right, I can do that. How are things going? Are you all ready for the new baby?" his father asked.

"Yeah, we've got tons of stuff," Brandon said.

"It sure is fun to plan for a baby," his father said.

"Yeah," said Brandon.

There was a pause.

"Well, I suppose I ought to let you get back to whatever I interrupted. Thanks for the advice, son," his father said.

"You're welcome," Brandon said. "Good-bye."

His father said good-bye. Brandon punched the off button and went back to inspecting his boat's engine. Amanda's due date was the same week as her family's annual Lake Powell excursion. They had a great excuse not to go this year, and Brandon was diligently looking for a reason not to send their boat, either. Unfortunately, there was nothing wrong with the engine. Still, he hadn't changed any of the filters or checked the spark plugs or done anything else to tune it up for the summer. He shut the cover. His boat wasn't ready to go out on a lake. They likely wouldn't take it out this year at all.

The WaveRunners were parked behind the boat on the dented trailer. He'd looked at a few ads for trailers, but hadn't replaced the one Rick ruined last year when he jackknifed their trailer. He also hadn't tuned up the WaveRunners for the summer.

Looked like he couldn't send any of his water toys to Lake Powell with Amanda's family. He was looking forward to the conversation where he told them to rent a speedboat and WaveRunners.

He headed into the house to tell Amanda that her family couldn't take his boat and WaveRunners to Lake Powell, but met Amanda coming out.

"Where are you going?" he asked her.

"To Young Women's with our neighbor, Nicole Benton. They're doing some mini-classes tonight about health and I'm teaching the one on exercise," Amanda said.

"At eight months pregnant, you're teaching a class on exercise?" Brandon said.

"I'm explaining aerobic and anaerobic exercise, the value of resistance training, what sort of workouts target all the main muscle groups, and how to avoid injuries. I'm not going to demonstrate how to run stairs or do push-ups," Amanda said. "If you get bored tonight, can you vacuum?"

"Sure, yeah, I love to vacuum," Brandon said.

"Don't be rude about it. If you don't want to vacuum, then don't vacuum. I can do it tomorrow," Amanda said.

"Have fun tonight," Brandon said, and walked past her into the house. Relief Society wasn't enough, now she had to go to Young Women's too. Soon she'd be helping out with Primary activities. She was supposed to stay home so they could laugh about how mad her family would be about not getting free use of his boat and WaveRunners this year.

He opened the fridge to get something to eat. Leftover takeout didn't sound good. There was half an apple pie left. He got that out and sat down at the counter with a fork and a big glass of milk. He reached for a booklet on the counter to have something to read and realized it was a ward directory. He tossed it in a stack of clutter and fished out some ads instead. The ads were boring, and he'd already read the ESPN magazine. He put another forkful of pie in his mouth and reached for the ward directory again. He flipped it open and found their listing. It had their names, their address, and Amanda's cell phone number. He flipped it shut.

Once you were on a Mormon list, they never let you go. Why would he even want to bless his baby? Blessing a baby added her to the membership roles, even if she never entered Church again for the rest of her life. He would be sentencing his daughter to a lifetime of showing up in ward directories. His wife probably wouldn't mind. There were some good things about raising your child in the Church. Now that he was going to have a daughter, all those teachings about clean living, no drinking, and no sex were sounding better and better. Of course, lots of people who weren't Mormon didn't drink or sleep around either. Raising her without a religion didn't mean she was going to go wild.

Amanda probably wanted to raise her as a Mormon. Realistically, the baby was going to have a lot of Mormon friends, starting with the neighbor across the street.

Brandon upended the pile of clutter after he finished his pie and found the sticky note he'd gotten from Brian with the executive secretary's name and number. He could talk to the bishop for five minutes and find out if he could bless his baby. There was no way he was going to let his father or his father-in-law bless his baby. If he couldn't bless her, then she wasn't going to be blessed. Not that it mattered. A baby blessing wasn't a saving ordinance, and was completely unnecessary. Not that he believed in saving ordinances anyway, because that would require a testimony. A baby blessing was a social event and nothing more.

Brandon fingered the sticky note and wished Amanda would bug him about it. Then they could have a fight and he could dump the entire decision on her. He was irritated at her for leaving it to him. He was irritated at her for wanting to go to Church again. She hadn't gone to the Sunday meetings yet, but it was only a matter of time. She was breaking their bargain. They'd dated and married as permanently inactive Mormons. She had no business changing. They were going to be parents; that was enough of a change without trying to be religious again.

The problem with being a Mormon is that you could never be good enough. He'd been sent home from his mission early. That was a permanent stain that would never go away. Everyone would judge him if they knew about it. He almost wished he'd been sent home for a really good reason, like fooling around with a girl, so he would deserve the permanent stain. But no, his potential as a Mormon was stymied by football. His dad was ashamed of him because of football.

He tossed the pie dish in the sink and stomped out of the kitchen. He turned on the tv and started flipping channels, but there was nothing on. Why had he told Danna the whole story of his mission? Even while explaining it all to her, he'd listened to himself and noticed for the first time how much of his animosity against the Church was simply revenge against his dad for being disappointed in him. If football was a stupid reason to get sent home from your mission, then punishing your dad was a stupid reason to leave the Church.

He turned off the tv and logged on to the Internet to check in with some of his anti-Mormon discussion forums that he hadn't visited in a couple months. There were a few new names, along with the oldtimers. He clicked into a discussion topic. They were rehashing the same ideas he'd heard countless times before. The topics typically started with a question or observation, and then degenerated into sneering at Mormon sheep and their power-hungry leaders. Usually he liked joining in, but tonight it sounded strident and unpleasant. After reading four topics without posting any replies, Brandon realized he was bored by it. He was tired of being angry at the Church. It was exhausting to sustain that level of anger.

If Amanda went back to Church, she was going to be disappointed in him the same way his father was disappointed in him. But while he wanted to hurt his dad for being disappointed in him, he didn't want to hurt Amanda. If he got upset enough, he could probably get her to quit going to Church just to calm him down. Maybe. Or she might tell him to stuff it and go anyway. And he didn't really want her to quit going to Church. She was happy to have friends and be involved. He didn't want to take that from her. His daughter was going to want friends too. He'd be the only one sitting home without friends.

Were social reasons enough to go back to Church? His wife seemed to think so. Every ward had a few families that showed up for friends, and skipped Church when there was a better option, like water-skiing. They could be one of those families.

Maybe he would ask the bishop if blessing his baby was even a possibility. It was just a simple question. Before he could talk himself out of it, he dialed the executive secretary's phone number, and hoped that voice mail would pick up.

"Hello," said a child's voice.

"Hi, uh, is your dad there?" Brandon asked.

"My dad doesn't live here," the child answered. "Do you want to talk to my husband?"

"Sorry. I'm trying to call, um, Brother Emery," Brandon said.

"That's my husband. Just a minute."

She had a young voice. It wasn't entirely his fault he'd thought she was a little girl. She probably got that all the time. Weren't women supposed to be flattered when someone thought they were younger than they were?

"This is Brother Emery," a man's voice announced.

"Hi, I need about five minutes to ask the bishop a question," Brandon said.

"Would you rather come in Sunday morning or Tuesday evening?" Brother Emery asked.

"Tuesday," Brandon said, and then panicked. Weren't Relief Society meetings on Tuesdays? What if Amanda saw him at the Church? But he couldn't go on Sunday because she would know he was going somewhere. It would have to be Tuesday.

"Is seven o'clock all right?" Brother Emery asked.

"That sounds great," Brandon said.

"What's your name?"

"Brandon Grayson."

"All right. You're all set. I gave you fifteen minutes, because no one ever gets out of the bishop's office in five minutes," Brother Emery said.

"I'll be the first," Brandon said. "Thanks."

"Have a good evening," said Brother Emery.

"You too," said Brandon, and hung up. He could always skip the appointment.

Brian was reading the Ensign. He'd been staring at the same sentence for fifteen minutes. He didn't know what the article was about. He didn't even know what the sentence said.

Maria and Hannah were down the hall in their home office with Officer Pailey and Officer Wright. Yesterday, someone from the Division of Child and Family Services had interviewed Hannah. He was eaten up with fear of a false accusation of abuse, and he didn't dare ask too many questions about what Hannah said because he might suggest the very suspicion he was trying to avoid.

The foundation of his fear was his own guilt. He'd yelled at Hannah, but no one went to jail for yelling. He'd grabbed her arm and shaken her a few times, but never squeezed hard enough to leave a bruise. Well, only once. His behavior wasn't abusive enough to get him in trouble with the law.

It was the Lord's infinitely higher standards that were prosecuting him. Before the night that Hannah confessed and Brian went to hell, he might have casually shrugged if anyone asked if he'd ever hurt his daughter. He avoided thinking about it. Once he got over a fit of anger, his daughter should be over it too. But then God showed him Hannah's point of view, on a giant screen Imax in 3D with surround sound and a direct link into Hannah's emotions. There was nothing fuzzy about his memory of the times he'd scared Hannah anymore.

He was forgiven, his sins burned away in the furnace of Christ's purity. He hadn't used porn or gotten angry in the six days since then. Six days.

The final injunction from the night Christ bought his soul back from the devil was to bring forth the fruits of repentance. The most obvious fruit of repentance was to forsake his sins. He'd forsaken his sins for six days, and was already feeling the pressure build as everyday life rubbed off the corners of his resolve. He didn't have the spiritual strength and maturity to maintain the freedom from sin that Christ had given him. Pastor Jim called it living in the grace of God daily. Mormons called it enduring to the end. Whatever it was called, Brian didn't know how to do it.

Foolishly, perhaps, he'd made a bargain with God. If neither the police nor DCFS investigated him for child abuse, he would do whatever it took to forsake his sins. If he was investigated, that was too much pressure to handle without his crutches and he would fall back into his old habits. His bargain was ripping him apart with ambivalence. It would be horrible to be falsely accused of sexually abusing his daughter, but at least he could continue to blame his sins on his circumstances. If he wasn't falsely accused, then he had to permanently give up the sins that had so deeply embedded themselves in his character that he wasn't sure there would be anything left of him once those sins were gone. The idea of falling back into his old, familiar habits attracted him. That he was nostalgic for his sins only six days after being forgiven for them made him despair of the lifelong battle ahead of him.

Brian dropped the Ensign and stood up when the home office door opened and Hannah emerged, clinging to her mother's hand. Maria and Hannah walked back to the living room, with Officer Pailey and Officer Wright following them. He wiped his hands on his pants and licked his lips.

Hannah glanced nervously from parent to parent.

"You're all done, Hannah," Maria told her. "You did just fine, and we love you. Could you please go play while mom and dad talk to the police officers?"

Hannah nodded and walked downstairs to find Noah, looking back over her shoulder.

"Please sit down," Brian said.

"Thanks," Officer Pailey answered as she and Officer Wright sat on the couch.

"Where do we go from here?" Brian asked.

"We turn the interview transcript over to Sergeant Morley in the Sex Crimes Unit. He'll determine what happens next. We'll contact the police in Michigan, since the alleged incident took place in Michigan, and the perpetrator lives there. It's likely Michigan will have jurisdiction over the investigation and the crime," Officer Pailey said.

"Then we're done?" Brian asked. If all the talk was about Michigan, then he wasn't a suspect. He'd worked himself up so much about a false accusation that it was almost a disappointment to find he'd wasted all that worrying.

"It depends on the unit in Michigan. If they need additional information, they may ask us to conduct more interviews, or they may send their own investigator. It depends on what they turn up in their interview with Lee Masters," Officer Pailey said.

"Is DCFS done too?" Maria asked. A social worker from DCFS interviewed Hannah the day before.

"That's up to DCFS. We share information with them, but we don't coordinate investigations," Officer Pailey said.

"Will you keep us updated?" Brian asked.

"Once we turn the case over to Michigan, I may not know very much, but you're welcome to call me any time," Officer Pailey said, handing them her card. "That's my direct line, and my email address. If Hannah's case is assigned to our Sex Crimes Unit, I'll let you know who your contact is, but if the case goes directly to Michigan, it may or may not be assigned to someone locally. I can let you know."

"Thanks for the way you handled the interview," Maria said. "I was worried, but you were really nice to our daughter."

"Unfortunately, Mrs. Anderson, we have a lot of experience interviewing little girls who have been molested. We try to make the interview as painless as possible. She's got enough to deal with," Officer Pailey answered.

Maria blinked back tears.

Brian filled out paperwork giving the address and phone numbers of his sister's family in Michigan and handed it back to Officer Pailey.

"Thank you," Officer Pailey said. "It may take several days before you hear anything more. Do call me if you want."

She and Officer Wright got up to leave. Maria walked them to the door. Brian watched out the front window as they got in their patrol car and drove away.

"Well?" Brian said after they were gone, hoping Maria would tell him that Hannah never mentioned him.

"It was pretty heartbreaking to listen to Hannah tell all the details," Maria said. She started to cry and Brian pulled her head onto his shoulder.

"I hope they don't have to interview her again," Maria said.

"Me too," Brian said. "I don't really want them to charge Lee with a crime. I want them to get the kid some help." He couldn't bring himself to get really angry at his nephew. The kid had only been nine. He felt sympathy for Crystal, his sister, who was soon going to learn her son was both victim and perpetrator. He suspected she wasn't going to handle it very well. He wondered if his father knew that Cliff was still molesting little boys. He wondered if his father was still molesting little boys.

"I hope Lee tells them all about Cliff. Hannah mentioned Cliff's name a couple of times. I hope Lee tells them so much about Cliff that they throw him in jail," Maria said.

Brian allowed himself to picture Cliff being led away in handcuffs. He'd likely protest his innocence even as they locked the cell behind him. They were just games, not abuse! he would say. Cliff was pathetic and Brian hated him. But the disgust he felt for his uncle paled in comparison to the white-hot rage he felt for his father. Cliff had abused him more often than his father had. His father joined in sometimes. Even after his father quit participating, he simply abandoned him to his uncle's depredations before eventually telling Cliff to use his own son instead. The betrayal still hurt worse than the actual abuse.

The anger and hatred burned hotter because they were so futile. His father would never care, and neither would his uncle. It doesn't bother us anymore, they would say, why are you still whining about it?

And with the anger and powerlessness towards the men who had molested him came the despair that he could ever truly give up the sins they'd rooted in him, and become something other than what his father's sins had made him.

"Yeah," Brian said to Maria. "I hope Cliff goes to jail too."

Chapter 78

2010-02-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

Brian got in the car after his therapy appointment, wishing he had a cell phone so he could talk to his wife right now. Instead, he stewed all the way home, and asked her to take a walk with him.

Maria filled him in on the household events of that morning while they walked down the street and turned the corner.

"What did you need to talk about?"

"I asked my therapist about Hannah. I told him what she said, and asked if it would be best to have Hannah see a therapist too, or if she would be fine without therapy," Brian said.

"What did he say?" Maria asked.

"He's a therapist. He recommended therapy," Brian said. "He was fair about it. He said it depends on whether or not Hannah wants to talk about being molested. Some kids aren't ready to process what happened. A therapist might not do much good now, but she may need one in a few years. He said he wouldn't know until she's actually in therapy and they see how she's responding."

"Let's find her a therapist. Did he give you any recommendations?" Maria asked.

"Yes. I told him we wanted a woman to work with Hannah. He gave me two names and offered to call them and tell them I would be in touch soon. I told him to hold off for a week while we think about it," Brian said.

"That sounds great, Brian. How soon can we get her some help?"

"Maria, therapists are mandatory reporters. You know what that means, right?"

"I'm a mandatory reporter too, Brian. I'm a teacher," Maria answered.

"My therapist has to report our conversation this morning."

"To the police?"

"Yes, and probably the Division of Child and Family Services will get involved along with the police. They'll want to interview Hannah, and they're likely to do some probing to find out if anyone else has abused her," said Brian.

"Anyone else?"

"Me, Maria. They're going to ask her about me," said Brian.

"Well, you haven't," Maria said.

"I know I've never abused my daughter, and Hannah knows I've never touched her. But if she looks too scared after a question, or if she gets confused and says the wrong thing," Brian trailed off. "I forgot to ask my therapist if he has to tell them that I'm in therapy too for child abuse. Victims sometimes become abusers. It isn't outside the realm of possibility that they automatically suspect me and will be looking for a reason to accuse me too."

Maria took his hand.

"You have no idea what it's like to be on everyone's watch list just because you're a man," Brian said. "The other day, I was reading an article in my therapist's waiting room by a woman talking about rape safety. She said that only another woman can understand what it's like to know you're vulnerable to attack all the time. She may be right about that, but only another man can understand what it's like to know you're vulnerable to accusation all the time."

"Hannah is honest. She won't lie," Maria insisted.

"What if they ask her if she's ever been scared of me? What if they ask her if I've ever given her a bath? What if they ask her if I've ever grabbed her or shaken her or yelled at her?" Brian said. "We've got a little girl who kept a terrible secret for two years because she was afraid of her dad. Do you know what that's going to suggest to those people?"

Maria walked more and more slowly. "Will they let us stay with her during the interview?"

"I doubt it," said Brian.

"It's all going to depend on what Hannah says," Maria said.

"It's a weird feeling to know your future is in the hands of your seven-year-old daughter," Brian said.

Maria squeezed his hand. "Now I'm scared too."

"She's a good kid, and that's partly why I'm worried. She likes to do what people expect. I don't know how she'll respond to being pressured," Brian said. "She might say what she thinks they want to hear, just to make them happy."

"We'll talk to her about honesty before the interview," Maria said. "If she only tells what Lee did to her, you'll be fine."

"I hope I'll be fine," Brian said. "Want to hear the other firestorm this is going to set off?"

"Go ahead."

"If Hannah's story is believable, the Utah police send the report to the Michigan police."

Amanda glanced up from her magazine again to check out the living room window. The yard across the street was still empty. Usually, the little boys across the street were playing outside at this time of evening, with their mother watching them. Amanda waved at them all the time, only now that she was planning to go over and talk to them, they decided to stay indoors for an evening.

Two magazine articles later, the boys burst out the front door and ran for their tricycles. Their mom sat down on the porch's patio furniture. Amanda waited another couple of minutes before grabbing her keys and heading out the door. On her way to the car, she waved at her neighbor, who waved back. As if she'd just changed her mind about leaving immediately, Amanda walked across the street.

"Hi, come sit down. You look like you could take a load off your feet too," her neighbor said.

"Thanks," said Amanda, taking the other chair and folding her hands across her belly. The baby kicked her. "You're Nicole Benton, right? I was talking to Sister Bodily the other day and she said that we're both having girls the same week."

"I know! I saw that on the baby list at Church! Isn't that the cutest coincidence? How have you been feeling?" Nicole asked.

"Really good," Amanda said. "My manager has given me all the easy patients at work, and Brandon took over the cleaning at home. I try not to tell them that I'm doing fine and they don't need to baby me so much. I have no idea how you're handling two little boys while being pregnant."

"They run wild," Nicole said. "Every so often I shoot one with a tranquilizer dart."

"Do you get those from your pediatrician?" Amanda said.

"Prescription only," Nicole said, and they both laughed.

"How is the switch from blue to pink coming along?" Amanda asked.

"I'm in heaven. I need another closet for all the frilly dresses I've bought, and we're getting hand-me-downs from about eight relatives. Do you need baby girl clothes? I'm going to have to change her outfit every two hours just to make sure she wears everything before she outgrows it," Nicole said.

"I couldn't cram another thing into my baby's closet," Amanda said. "This is my mom's first grandbaby in nine years, and the only one in the state. I swear she bought stock in Baby Gap and is singlehandedly trying to make them more profitable. My husband is determined to do more for our baby than my mom does, so every time she brings over something for the baby, he has to go buy her even more. I'm looking for an orphanage in Africa that needs to be completely outfitted. I could donate three-fourths of her stuff, and she'll never miss it."

Nicole laughed, and then looked thoughtful. "Are you serious? Because I have an old college roommate who is opening an OB clinic in Africa some time this year."

"No way! Yeah, find out where I can ship stuff," Amanda said.

"I'll get in touch with her," Nicole said.

"I'll leave the wipe warmers and singing potty chairs out of the box," Amanda said.

"Wipe warmers," Nicole giggled. "Okay, I'll admit that Jayden got a wipe warmer. But by the time Carson came along, we made him suffer through cold wipes."

"Oldest babies get all the best gadgets," Amanda said.

"Yeah, but younger babies get an older sibling to play with," Nicole said as Jayden rammed his tricycle into the mailbox with Carson in hot pursuit.

"There's a bonus," Amanda said.

Nicole and Amanda sat on the porch chatting until the mosquitoes and Carson's bedtime drove them indoors.

Maria was obsessively cleaning the bathrooms. She scrubbed the faucets with a toothbrush, and got down on her hands and knees to clean the base of the toilet and the floor behind it with a sponge and disinfectant spray. She turned her attention to the baseboards. A casual wipe with the sponge didn't get all the dust off. Dust was glued to the baseboards by hairspray. If she was a decent housekeeper, that much dust would never have built up on the baseboard behind the bathroom door. She sprayed cleaner on the baseboards and attacked it with the sponge. Some of it came off. She sprayed again, and scrubbed harder. She was digging at the caked dust when the sponge flipped out of her hand and the pressure she was applying caused her to break a nail. It broke all the way down to the quick.

Maria burst into tears because her fingernail hurt and her baseboards were dirty. She quickly progressed to sobs because Hannah's interviews were tomorrow and Brian had scared her that Hannah might unwittingly implicate him in something he hadn't done. She turned on the faucets to let the sound of running water obscure the sound of crying.

She sharply envied Brian his therapist. She envied Hannah for the therapist they hadn't found her yet. She wanted a therapist. She wanted to talk. She was inside a pressure cooker of silence, and every new development turned up the heat. They'd talked to Ruth and Noah; both of them said they hadn't been molested. But every new day brought the fear that she would find out something else she couldn't handle.

Poor Danna. She needed to call and visit with Danna again, but she felt paralyzed until she could clear the hurdle of Hannah's interview and know whether or not her husband would have to deal with a false accusation of child abuse. Helping Danna was the one good thing that had come out of this mess. If she hadn't had the experiences with Brian and Hannah, she might not have known how to listen to Danna. But now Danna was her responsibility too, along with her own family.

She finished crying. The urge to do something grew. She felt so helpless, sitting and waiting to find out the next thing. There wasn't anything she could do. She had to talk. She had to talk, or she was going to have a screaming nervous breakdown and Brian was going to have to take care of her for a change.

Maria crept out of the bathroom so no one would see her and ask for anything. She grabbed the phone and returned to the bathroom. After she'd locked the door, she dialed her mom. She meant to tell her mother only about Hannah, but once she started talking, the entire story spilled out. Her mother listened, making appropriate noises of sympathy and surprise as Maria told her about Brian's problems through the years, his freakish temper that no one outside the family ever saw, finding porn on his computer just before Christmas, the revelation that he'd been sexually abused as a child, the roller coaster of recovery, and finally Hannah's bombshell and the upcoming interviews, including the worry that Brian was vulnerable to a false accusation.

When she finished, there was silence. And then her bewildered mother asked, "why haven't you told me any of this before?"

"It's complicated," Maria cried. She hadn't told her because she hadn't wanted to admit there was a problem, and some things should be kept private in a marriage, and she didn't want her mother to lose her good opinion of Brian, and gossip was wrong, and her mother would feel bad that she couldn't help more, and she was an adult and shouldn't need to ask for help, and the entire situation was simply so huge that it was hard to break it down into words.

"I can come visit, Maria," her mother told her. "I will come give you a hug, and do all the cooking."

Maria knew she should turn down the offer. Her mother had a job with a stingy vacation policy. It was a long drive from California. She hadn't talked to Brian about a visit. She shouldn't impose on her mother like that. But instead she asked, "when can you get here?"

Chapter 77

2010-02-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

"Ruth! Clean up your homework! We're leaving in ten minutes!" Maria called down the hallway.

"I have to finish it after Young Womens!" Ruth called back.

"I'm having the Laurels over here for a movie and caramel corn. Your homework is all over the kitchen table!" Maria called.

Ruth appeared in the kitchen and scooped up her biology and math books. "Save me some caramel corn," she said. "We're playing ultimate Frisbee with the deacons tonight."

"We'll have tons," Maria said. "You can eat caramel corn until your teeth pull out of your head."

Ruth giggled. "You're the best, mom."

"You want to be toothless? The best moms don't rot their children's teeth," Maria said.

"It's caramel corn! It's worth it!" Ruth called back over her shoulder as she opened her bedroom door and dumped her textbooks on the floor.

"I can help, right mom?" Hannah asked anxiously.

"We couldn't do it without you," Maria assured her. "I have to go to opening exercises at the Church, and then we'll bring the Laurels back here."

"Do you want me and Noah to start melting the butter?" Hannah offered.

"You two stay away from the stove," Maria said.

"I'll watch them," Brian said, coming in from the garage. "Hannah, are you sure you don't want to go to McDonald's with Noah and me instead?"

"Yeah, I want to stay with mom," Hannah said, turning worshipful eyes on her mother.

Maria smiled back at her, hoping Hannah couldn't see the self-condemnation in her eyes, but afraid that she could. She'd been sick to her stomach ever since Sunday night, when Hannah told her about what her cousin, Lee, had done to her. She and Brian needed to get Hannah some help, but they were both still spinning in circles. Besides, the self-recriminations were blocking any real solutions. Neither one of them could get past blaming themselves to do something constructive for Hannah.

Maria settled for warm words which she hoped would make up for the strain in her smile. "I love having you here. We'll be back home in half an hour."

Maria and Ruth walked to the Church. Maria listened intently to Ruth's chatter because it distracted her from the self-blame that was constantly playing in her thoughts.

"Don't you think so?" Ruth asked her.

"Sure, that would be fine," Maria said before realizing she didn't know what Ruth was talking about. She was more distracted than she thought. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Oh, forget it," Ruth said. She was uncharacteristically silent the rest of the way to Church.

I'm a bad mother, Maria told herself for the thousandth time. I shouldn't be Young Women's President. I shouldn't even be a mother. I thought I was doing the right thing to tell my children not to hate their cousin and try to get along, and I should have asked them about it instead of telling them to be nice. Why would Heavenly Father trust me with the young women in the ward when my own children don't even trust me? I'm no better than my mother-in-law.

At opening exercises, Maria made a point of talking to as many people as she could, wondering if she could win an Academy Award for acting normal while her whole world imploded.

Nicole Benton sat with the only four Laurels who had come tonight. Maria was surprised to see Danna Simmons. She'd quit coming to Young Womens' activities when she started working. Too bad that Jessie and Taylor Chuffey weren't here tonight; they were the girls Danna was most comfortable with. Instead, Whitney Cunningham, Chantelle Spelling, and Savannah Nixon were chatting together as Nicole talked to Danna.

After opening exercises, Maria joined Nicole and Danna, who were lagging far behind the other three Laurels to accommodate Nicole's slow pace as they walked back to the Anderson's house.

"How is your job going?" Maria asked cheerfully, hoping against hope that Danna hadn't noticed that not one of the other Laurels had said a word to her. If she and Nicole talked to her enough, maybe the snub wouldn't matter as much. Or it would matter, but Danna could earn an Academy Award too for pretending that it didn't matter.

"I really like it. I didn't work today because my manager closed the clinic early today so a bunch of the therapists could go to a training seminar on new techniques," Danna said.

"We're glad you came tonight," Nicole said, putting one hand on her belly and the other on her back.

Danna shrugged. "It beats going home."

"Are you going to be all right?" Maria asked Nicole.

"It's just false labor," Nicole said. "I'm still two months away from delivery. The contractions will stop as soon as I sit down. I probably should have driven tonight instead of walking."

"Lean on me," Maria ordered, giving Nicole her arm.

"I'm fine, really," Nicole said.

"Humor me," Maria said.

Danna kept a polite and uncomfortable smile fixed in place as Maria helped Nicole to her house and onto the couch.

"You don't move," Maria said. "We'll make the caramel corn, and wait on you hand and foot. How are the contractions?"

"Already gone," Nicole said. "I told you they would stop as soon as I could sit down."

"Are you going to have your baby tonight?" Savannah asked.

"Can I hold it?" Hannah said, popping into the family room.

"I'm not having my baby tonight," Nicole said. "Now all of you go make me some caramel corn."

Danna sat on the couch next to her advisor, Nicole Benton, watching Fame. The movie wasn't very interesting. The other girls were all chatting together, not even pretending to watch the movie anymore. Every so often, Danna took another few pieces of caramel corn, and then looked at the screen like she couldn't wait to see what happened next.

This party was celebrating the end of the school year, but Danna didn't feel like celebrating. Without school, she would be stuck home most of the day. Her manager said they couldn't give her any more hours. She wondered if she could find a job in the mornings. She wished the bus system was better. Getting to job interviews and a job without a car was complicated. Being home after finding out how her mother really felt about her was intolerable.

Sister Anderson gathered up some sticky napkins. Danna quickly stacked some empty cups and followed Sister Anderson into the kitchen to help her clean up.

"Thanks," Sister Anderson said. "I'm just going to run some hot water into the sticky bowls and let it sit. You don't have to feel like you need to abandon the party."

"It's no big deal," Danna said, gathering up waxed paper and brushing some crumbs into her hand and then into the garbage.

"Are you excited school is letting out?" Sister Anderson asked. "What you students don't know is that the teachers are as excited for summer as you are."

Danna gave half a smile. "I like school. Summer is going to be boring."

"Is your family taking any vacations this summer?" Sister Anderson asked.

"Probably. We have to go to Bear Lake every year with my mom's family. It used to be fun, but my Uncle Steve sold his boat last year, so all we could do was hang around on the beach and go wading. That gets boring," Danna said.

"Bear Lake is a pretty area," Sister Anderson said.

"I guess so."

"Do you like getting together with your cousins and aunts and uncles?" Sister Anderson asked.

Danna shrugged. "It's okay. I'm the oldest so I always have to be responsible for the kids when the adults get tired and want to go back to camp."

"But no major personality clashes?" Sister Anderson asked.

"Just with my mom. Everyone else pretty much leaves me alone," Danna said, sitting down on a stool as Sister Anderson wiped out the sinks.

"How is your mom?" Sister Anderson asked.

"Who cares? Did you hear her talk on Sunday?" Danna asked.

"I did. What did you think about it?" Sister Anderson asked.

"She's an idiot. I hate her," Danna said.

"How come?" Sister Anderson asked.

"Oh," Danna said in surprise. People from Church always told her it was wrong to hate her mother. But then again, this was Sister Anderson, who wouldn't let her have her Personal Progress Award even though her mother said she should get it, and who took her home for Thanksgiving. "I guess because she thinks you have to be perfect to be part of a family. She said so in her talk. She said that if someone breaks the commandments, they ought to get thrown away before they can contaminate anyone else."

"Christ taught that we should love people who are sinning, and help them not to sin anymore. He never said we should throw people away," Sister Anderson said.

"My mom wants to throw me away," Danna said.

"Come here," said Sister Anderson. She put an arm around Danna's shoulders and led her into the front room, away from the movie in the family room and the noise in the kitchen.

"Why would your mother want to throw you away?" she asked when they were sitting on the couch.

"I did something really bad when I was a kid. I told my mom about it and she got really mad at me. She's afraid my sister and brothers will turn out as bad as me," Danna said.

"Do you want to tell me what you did that was so bad?" Sister Anderson asked.

Danna turned to Sister Anderson and started crying. Sister Anderson put her arms around her. Danna nestled into her shoulder and cried and cried while Sister Anderson stroked her hair. Danna cried until she got the hiccups, which broke the mood and made her laugh at herself.

"You're a good person, Danna," Sister Anderson said.

That made Danna start crying again.

"There were these boys in sixth grade," Danna said, and then she was crying too hard to talk.

After a long time of tears, Sister Anderson asked, "did they attack you?"

Danna nodded. Her mascara was smeared all down Sister Anderson's yellow shirt. She rubbed at it and apologized.

"Don't worry about my shirt. Danna, that wasn't your fault. You're not a bad person," Sister Anderson said.

"But it was my fault! I didn't tell anyone, so I must have wanted it to happen again," Danna protested.

"It happened more than once?"

"Yeah, three days in a row. And I went with them. They told me I had to come with them. I could have run away, or screamed, or fought. Mom said if I didn't secretly want them to do those things then I would have run away or screamed or something, but I didn't, so I must have wanted it," Danna said.

"Was there another reason you didn't run away or scream?" Sister Anderson asked.

"I was too scared. I was afraid they would hurt me worse," Danna said in a low voice.

"It doesn't sound to me like you wanted it. It sounds to me like you were too scared to even know that you could scream or run away," Sister Anderson said.

"I was! I was so scared that I peed my pants and they laughed at me. I didn't tell my mom about that part," Danna said. She'd tied her jacket around her waist and sat in her mess the rest of the day rather than tell the teacher she needed to go home and change clothes.

"You were scared," Sister Anderson repeated.

"I was scared," Danna repeated.

"Your mom was wrong to tell you that you wanted those boys to hurt you," Sister Anderson said.

"My mom was wrong," Danna said, and she doubled over crying onto Sister Anderson's lap because she had never said those words in her life. Her mom was always so sure she was right about everything and Danna believed her. She believed her because she wanted a mom she could trust. It was a horrendous wrench to realize her mom should not be trusted.

"Danna, do you still see those boys? Do they still hurt you?" Sister Anderson asked.

Danna shook her head. "They went to the other junior high. I've never seen them again."

"Has anyone else ever attacked you?" Sister Anderson asked.

"No," said Danna.

Sister Anderson tipped up her chin and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm going to tell you something that you can believe. It was not your fault. You are a good person, and it wasn't your fault."

Danna started crying again. "Yes it was! It was my fault!"

"What makes you think it was your fault?" Sister Anderson asked.

"I grew boobs," Danna sobbed. "If I wasn't a girl, they would have left me alone. It was my fault because I'm a girl and I have boobs. They told me they picked me because of my boobs."

Sister Anderson let her cry. As her tears slowed down, she tried to reason with her. "Danna, half the population is female, and all of us have breasts. Not all of us are attacked. No one else has attacked you. It was their fault, not yours."

"That makes sense to my head, but my heart doesn't feel that way," Danna said.

The chatter from the family room increased as the movie ended, and both of them heard footsteps as people started wandering into the kitchen.

"You poor darling. Listen to me. I believe with both my head and my heart that it was not your fault. I want you to remember that next time you think it was your fault. You tell yourself that Sister Anderson knows it wasn't your fault. Can you stay after the rest of the girls leave? I don't think we're done talking," Sister Anderson said.

"I can stay," Danna said, wiping at her red nose and eyes. "I might go hang out in the bathroom so no one else sees me."

"Go ahead. I'll go thank people for coming and send them home," Sister Anderson said.

It was past ten o'clock when Maria dropped into the chair in the office next to Brian, who was balancing their checkbook online. "Thanks for getting the kids in bed," she said.

"No problem. Everything okay?" Brian asked.

"Some problems, but it's confidential," Maria said. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Did you ever believe that the sexual abuse was your fault?" Maria asked.

"Constantly," Brian said. "Kids are guilt sponges. They believe everything is their fault."

"Even though it doesn't make sense to blame yourself?"

"Is there anything about abuse that makes sense?" Brian asked drily. "Why should the victim's feelings make more sense than the abuser's actions?"

"Oh."

"Part of the healing process is learning that it wasn't your fault. It takes time and patience, and it is not one bit helpful to have someone tell you that your feelings don't make any sense. I mean, you already know that nothing in your life makes sense, so getting lectured about it simply adds to the confusion," Brian said.

"Oh," Maria said again. "Is there anything helpful that someone could say?"

Brian shrugged. "Maybe listen to them talk about why they think it's their fault, and then tell them that you don't think it was their fault without trying to convince them to agree with you."

Maria let her head fall back against the chair. She'd done one thing right tonight. Maybe she wasn't a complete failure after all.

Danna slipped into her house and silently went to her bedroom. She changed into pajamas, brushed her teeth, and lay down on her bed. After a few minutes, she rolled over and fished the painting of Christ helping the children across the river out of its hiding place. She smiled as she traced the hair of the little girl who was reaching up towards Christ. Tonight, it was easy to believe Christ loved her.

Chapter 76

2010-02-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

Brandon Grayson usually got home from work a few minutes before his wife. He got the mail and walked into the kitchen, absently flipping through the envelopes. He opened a thick envelope and found out a cousin was getting married. He stuck the photo to the fridge with a magnet. He didn’t open the mortgage statement or the power bill. A mailer came from Best Buy, and he turned to the ads for flat-panel televisions. Nothing caught his eye. A baby magazine was at the bottom of the stack of junk mail. Amanda gave a store her address when she bought maternity clothes, and that put them on every baby mailing list in the West. He thumbed through the magazine and wondered if his baby really needed a swing that played twenty-four different tunes and had twelve speed settings. He considered a stroller that had better suspension than his Blazer.

He heard Amanda's Honda pull into the garage, and turned back to a page advertising a baby food maker with seventeen attachments that looked really cool.

"What do you think of this?" he asked Amanda as she walked in. Danna came with her. "Check this out, Danna. This gadget turns anything into baby food. Let's start the baby on chips and salsa!"

"You're such a dork," Danna told him fondly, "that's for sweet potatoes and corn and stuff."

"This is my baby we're talking about," he answered. "My baby wants chips and salsa."

"In your dreams, buster," Amanda told him, kissing him on the forehead and dropping her purse on the counter.

"We can thin it out with Dr. Pepper," Brandon continued.

"I see why you don't let him cook very often," Danna commented to Amanda.

"I'll have you know that I can microwave a frozen dinner as well as she can," Brandon said.

"We're not having frozen dinner tonight," Amanda said, "we're having canned dinner. Chef Boyardee or Campbell's? Your choice."

"Chef Boyardee," Brandon said, turning back to the magazine. "Want to hear this week's story about weird and whacky ways your child can get hurt?"

"No," said Amanda.

"I don't know why they put those stories in there. Like hormones don't do a good enough job of telling pregnant women to worry that their child will ruin their life in a freak accident," Brandon said, reading the article to himself.

"That's gruesome," Danna commented, reading over Brandon's shoulder.

"If either of you tells me about it, you will not get dinner tonight," Amanda threatened, emptying two cans into a saucepan and setting it on the stove.

Brandon tossed the magazine in the trash.

"Did anything good come in the mail?" Amanda asked.

"My cousin is getting married," Brandon said, pointing to the announcement on the fridge.

"Good for him," Amanda said, peering at the announcement.

"How are you doing?" Brandon asked Danna. "Going to take up skateboarding now that the snow is gone?"

"No, but I'm saving up to buy my own board for next winter," Danna said.

"You be careful. You start building up savings, and your mom will start charging you rent," Brandon said. Amanda had shared some stories about Danna's mom with him from the talks she had with Danna on the drive home. The more he heard about her, the less Brandon liked Danna's mom.

"She wouldn't dare," Danna said. "Perfect Mormon moms don't charge their kids rent. She'd be afraid the neighbors would find out."

"Like us?" Brandon asked. "I have a hard time believing she cares about our opinion."

"Yeah, you don't count. You don't go to Church," Danna said.

Brandon gave her a wounded look. "Now that hurts."

Amanda laughed out loud and told them to set the table.

As the three of them started on their ravioli, Brandon asked, "isn't your mom a fantastic cook?"

Danna shrugged. "Yeah. They're probably having veal parmigiana and stuffed mushrooms with vermicelli."

"I think I saw those words on a menu once," Amanda reflected.

"We should make you cook dinner," Brandon said.

"Whatever. I can't cook. My mom would never let me help. I might have ruined something."

"Bummer," Brandon said, dumping a ravioli off his spoon to land back in his bowl with a wet splat.

After they finished dinner, Danna leaned back in her chair and said with studied casualness, "I wanted to ask you something."

"You can borrow my baby food maker for your mom's veal parmesan and vermin," Brandon said, stacking their bowls and scooting them across the counter.

"No, seriously," Danna said. "I need you to tell me some reasons the Church isn't true."

Brandon's eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "Come again?" He glanced at Amanda, who gave him a wide-eyed look to say she hadn't seen this coming either.

"I need to know why the Church isn't true," Danna repeated.

"Any reason you want to know?" Brandon asked. If this conversation had happened online with a stranger, Brandon would have jumped right in with a list. But this was Danna, and he felt very much like a big brother towards her.

"I want to leave the Church, and I need a good reason," Danna said.

"Wanting to leave is a good enough reason," Brandon said.

"No, it isn't. You have to tell me why the Church isn't true so I can tell everyone else and they'll all agree with me that I'm right to leave," Danna said.

Brandon snorted. "In your dreams, Danna. There's no such thing as a reason so good that a faithful Mormon can't find a reason to ignore it. Nothing you say will make any difference. I've learned that the hard way."

Danna's eyes filled with tears. "There has to be something," she protested.

Amanda pulled her chair closer to Danna's and rubbed her back. "Danna, do you want the reason for yourself or for someone else?"

"For my mom," Danna admitted.

"Danna, you don't have any chance at all of convincing your mom that the Church isn't true," Brandon said flatly.

"She doesn't even care about me," Danna sobbed. "She's so smug about being a perfectly faithful Mormon, and I hate the Church because it's my mom's whole life. I can't hurt her anymore. She doesn't care enough about me; she only cares about Church. I want a reason I can throw at her like a bomb. I want Church to be a lie because that will hurt my mom more than anything else in the whole world. I could commit suicide and she wouldn't even care as long as the Church was still true and the rest of her children were still righteous. She'd probably be relieved I wasn't around to contaminate her perfect family anymore."

Brandon met Amanda's eyes over Danna's bowed head. Danna's wrenching grief reawakened old hurts that Brandon thought he had buried.

"That's pretty much the reason I left the Church," Brandon said. "But I'll tell you this: there wasn't one thing I could say to my dad about the Church that would budge his testimony one iota. I hated him for being so certain. I hated him for years."

"Why do they have to be so certain?" Danna demanded. "Why can't they act like a human being once in a while and admit they're not absolutely sure of everything in the universe?"

"I don't know."

Danna blew her nose in the tissue Amanda gave her.

"Do you want to hear the story?" Brandon asked. Amanda shot him a look, and Brandon tried to give her a reassuring nod. He wasn't out to convert Danna to anti-Mormonism, just to let her know that someone else understood how she felt.

"Yeah."

"I'm not all that great about following rules, but I went on a mission anyway. I got called to the Maryland, Baltimore Mission. I did okay the first year. We had a really laid-back mission president who didn't mind if you missed curfew, or hung out with the members or investigators even if you weren't teaching. He was cool. I was an okay missionary. I mean, I wasn't district leader material or anything, but I wasn't a total slacker.

"About a year into my mission, we got a new mission president who was a real stickler for rules and quotas. Probably the Brethren picked him to shape up our mission. Some of the guys goofed off a lot more than I did. This new president came down on them pretty hard, and sent a couple guys home. They deserved it. The one companionship had started dating a couple member girls; stuff like that. I didn't do stuff like that. I didn't exactly hit it off with President, but it wasn't anything serious.

"Well, you know which team went to the Superbowl that year? The Baltimore Ravens. How can you build relationships of trust in Baltimore the year their team goes to the Superbowl if you don't watch the playoffs with them? We had this one family we were teaching who were rabid football fans. We'd teach a discussion or read scriptures with them, and then watch a game. We were all cool about it. Then at transfers, President sticks me with one of the mission's whiney, nasally, rule-abiding weenies as my new senior companion. You know the type? He freaked out that we were watching football with our investigators. There was only one game left, and then the Superbowl. But no, Elder Weenie writes President about my evil football games, and President actually calls me on the phone to tell me not to watch football anymore. Whatever, right? I tell Elder Weenie we've only got two games left.

"Elder Weenie throws a righteous fit like I've asked him to drink coffee or something. After we finish the discussion with our investigators, I sit back to watch the game, and he stands there glaring at me. The dad offers him a root beer, and instead he goes off on this lecture about obedience like you would not believe. Pretty much he tells our investigators that I'm going to hell because I want to watch the football game, and they're aiding and abetting in my corruption. The dad already thought Mormons were a bit uptight, and he's staring at my comp like he's growing horns.

"I finally drag Elder Weenie outside to tell him to stuff a sock in it, but he's all calling me to repentance. And you know, I really didn't hit him that hard. If he wasn't such a weenie, he wouldn't have even fallen over, but you would not believe the fuss he made about it. It's not like the bleeding didn't stop in two minutes, but he carried on like he was going to need a blood transfusion. He was such a weenie about it that we had to go home, which is what he wanted in the first place. But was he satisfied with that? No, he was not. He had to call President right that minute and report that we'd had a fight. I looked it up in the white handbook, and you know what? There isn't even a rule about not hitting your comp. I hadn't even broken one of their precious rules.

"Anyway, the interview with President didn't go so well either. I think the part where I called him a quota-filling, soulless Pharisee was probably the low point. But honestly, who gets sent home from a mission for something like that? I wasn't dating anyone, or sneaking off without my comp, or stealing funds from greenies. But he puts me on a plane anyway."

Brandon was waving his hands in the air as Danna stared at him in fascination.

"They don't tell your parents why you're coming home early. Did you know that? My folks just got a call telling them when I would be at the airport. I didn't get a chance to talk to them at all before I flew in to Salt Lake. I was still pretty steamed about the whole thing. And it's my dad who comes to pick me up. Not my mom, no one else in the family, just dad. Of course he goes off on this huge lecture, all based on the assumption that I've been fooling around with some girl because if you get sent home from your mission early without a medical problem, then that must be the problem. And I tell him that wasn't it at all. I start telling him about football and Elder Weenie. But as soon as I start telling him about President, he cuts me off. Won't even listen. Just tells me that criticizing priesthood leaders is the high road to apostasy and I need to humble myself and take counsel. Take counsel?! Like President even gave me a chance to take counsel. I was just trying to explain how watching football is building a relationship of trust and President wouldn't even listen.

"But that was it for my dad. I'd rebelled against a priesthood leader, and that made me an apostate. Over football.

"I stuck it out for almost a year. I went to Church every week. I even held a calling. But I could tell my dad was humiliated to have me home. Every week I showed up in Church when I should have been on a mission was another slap in his face. My older brother, Neil, served a mission. He was so proud of Neil he about popped the buttons right off his suit, but having me come home early undid all that and he could barely hold his head up.

"I finally decided he'd rather not have me there at all, so I quit. Since football is a really stupid reason to leave Church, I went looking for other reasons. I found plenty. If dad thought criticizing a priesthood leader was the high road to apostasy, I found plenty more reasons to criticize priesthood leaders besides dumb mission rules about not watching sports." Brandon gave an ironic smile. "Oddly, dad was not proud of me for finding better reasons to criticize priesthood leaders than my original reason."

"Did it hurt him?" Danna asked intently.

"Well, yeah," Brandon said. "But it hurt my mom and my sisters too. I didn't care so much about Neil because he's always been an overly righteous stick-in-the-mud, but I felt really bad about my mom. She tried getting between me and dad a couple times, and that didn't work. Dad and I both felt bad about that, so when mom was around, we wouldn't talk to each other at all to avoid fighting. My sister Marissa was okay about stuff. Mostly she didn't want to hear about it. But my sister Lynnette listened to me a lot. I really needed that."

"Did she leave the Church too?" Danna asked.

"No. She could listen to anything I could throw at her, and then bear her testimony. It would have driven me crazy, but she wasn't smug about it. It took me a few years to figure it out, but she really didn't care about facts and history. She cared about how her faith was helping her get through life, and the rest of it didn't matter to her," Brandon said.

"It would have hurt your dad more if you'd gotten your sister to leave the Church with you," Danna said.

"I didn't want her to leave the Church!" Brandon burst out.

"You didn't? Then why were you telling her all that stuff?" Danna asked.

"I don't know. I never thought about why I was telling her all the anti-Mormon stuff. I just needed to talk to somebody and she was willing to listen. In a weird way, I was relieved she didn't want to leave the Church too. You know, if she wanted to be a Mormon, then maybe I was wrong. Sometimes I wanted to be wrong," Brandon said.

"That's news to me," Amanda interrupted.

"But what about your dad?" Danna asked. "If you were wrong, then it's like admitting he was right. You don't want to do that, do you? Going back to Church would be like apologizing to him. He's a jerk for being judgmental when you got sent home, and you shouldn't make him feel better by going back to Church."

"Well, yeah," Brandon said.

"Or going back to Church and proving he was wrong about you would bother him more," Amanda said. "This way he gets to be the martyr with an inactive son to pray for."

"Is your mom going to feel bad about giving up that role?" Brandon asked drily.

"No, she can bear her testimony about how her prayers reactivated me," Amanda shot back.

"You're going back to Church?!" Danna said. "Why would you do that?"

"I like it there," Amanda said with a shrug. "I have friends. I can help out. It's all on my terms. I'm not in any danger of holding a calling or going to the temple or paying tithing or anything like that."

"You're going to get sucked in," Brandon predicted darkly.

"And would that be such a bad thing?" Amanda demanded.

"Do what you want," Brandon said.

"Your sincerity overwhelms me," Amanda said.

"How come you won't go back, Brandon? How come it isn't true? Tell me something I can use," Danna said.

"Nothing will make any difference to your mom. If you want to leave, then leave. Don't get all hung up on the reasons. Tell your mom it's because Mormons are all about appearances and you don't want to hang around hypocrites anymore," Brandon said.

"I tell her that all the time already," Danna said.

"It doesn't affect her, does it?" Brandon said.

Danna shook her head.

"She's got the testimony of a brick wall. Don't hurt yourself beating your head against it," Brandon said.

Danna started to cry again. "I wish there was one thing in the world that I could tell her that would make a difference to her."

"I'm sorry," Brandon said, "I really am."

"We care about you. We care about you a lot," Amanda said.

"Yeah, we really like having you over here. You're like the little sister I never had," Brandon said.

"Can I hang out with you guys tonight?" Danna asked.

"Absolutely," Amanda said.

"Want to play the Wii or the Xbox?" Brandon asked.

Chapter 75

2010-02-15T05:00:00.000-08:00

Maria Anderson lingered after the rest of the Laurels left to talk to Nicole Benton, the Laurel advisor. "Did you see Danna after sacrament meeting?"

"No, I had to take Jayden to Sunbeams. I was hoping she would stay for class today. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her talk," Nicole said.

"It was a fantastic talk," Maria said. "I've been praying about Danna. She bore the most beautiful testimony of Christ's unconditional love. It gave me hope that the Spirit is getting through to her. I worry about her so much."

"So do I. I didn't realize she knew the scriptures so well. I was proud of her. I kept elbowing Jason and telling him that that was my Laurel up there speaking," Nicole said.

"I wish she'd stayed for the rest of Church," Maria said.

"I'm sure we'll both see her outside some evening this week," Nicole said.

"Mom! Let's go home!" Noah announced, coming into the Young Women's room.

"Hi, son," Maria said, giving him a hug. "Did you like Primary today?"

"No, there weren't any treats," Noah said. "Can we go home and get an Oreo?"

"Let's go find everyone else," Maria said. "Thanks, Nicole. You did a great job on today's lesson. I'll see you at the activity on Wednesday."

Maria found her daughters and husband in the foyer, where Brian was chatting with Brother Call and Brother Fish. He saw her and waved, then went back to his conversation. He'd changed so much in the months since he'd started therapy. A year ago, he would have taken her appearance as the signal to simply walk away from the conversation and leave. Now he was relaxed enough to want to talk to other people. Maria kept her distance to avoid interrupting the conversation and asked her daughters about their classes. She kept Noah corralled so he wouldn't tell his dad they needed to go get an Oreo. The longer Brian talked with the ward membership clerk and the Elder's Quorum President, the better.

When Abby Nesbitt appeared, Ruth begged for permission to walk home with Abby. Maria said yes. Hannah wanted to go with them. With a sigh of longsuffering, Ruth allowed her little sister to accompany them. Abby's little brothers, John and Davey, caught up with them before they got out the door. Noah ran off after them. Maria was poised to retrieve Noah when John patted Noah on the head, then turned to wave and nod that he was fine with walking Noah home. Maria relaxed with a smile. Noah had a serious case of hero worship focused on John Nesbitt. John was a good sport about it.

Brian's conversation ended, and both Brother Call and Brother Fish shook her hand as they left.

"All the kids gone?" Brian asked, looking around.

"They're walking home with the Nesbitts. They're not too far ahead of us," Maria said.

Brian took Maria's bag of Young Women binders, scriptures and lesson manual from her and swung it over his own shoulder.

"Thanks," Maria said.

"No problem. How was Young Womens today?"

"It was fine. Nicole Benton teaches good lessons. We only had three Laurels come to class today. I was counting on seeing Danna Simmons, but it looks like she left after sacrament meeting," Maria said as they walked out the door together. "I wanted to tell her how much I enjoyed her talk."

"She gave a fantastic talk," Brian said. "You know what surprised me? I liked Carly Simmons' talk too. That woman usually rubs me the wrong way, but I liked what she had to say. It's like she really got the idea that you have to separate your family from Christ's standards. You don't hear stuff like that at Church very often."

"It was an unusual talk," Maria admitted. Honestly, her heart had sunk when Brother Lopez announced the speakers. She did not want Brian's second week back at Church to include sermons from the Simmonses, but their talks had been surprisingly good. "I got the feeling she was trying to make sense of her sister leaving."

"Well, she succeeded," Brian said.

Maria was quiet, wondering why Brian couldn't see that he had dragged some horrible influences into their family, and she'd stuck with him. Carly Simmons' talk suggested that she should have kicked him out rather than risk that his addiction and temper would have a negative effect on their children. She looked at him quizzically, then decided to keep her mouth shut.

"I've been wondering about how much contact we should have with my family," Brian said eventually. "In spite of everything, they are family. Even though Crystal didn't even send us a Christmas card because she was still mad that we skipped Thanksgiving, I was feeling guilty about cutting all ties with them. But Sister Simmons was right; you don't want to risk letting influences like that contaminate other family members. I don't think the kids will miss their cousin Lee very much anyway."

"They'll miss Heather's kids more," Maria said. "Hannah and Mayla are nearly the same age. Her twins, Grady and Hunter, are nice boys. I'd feel bad if we never saw them again. Your parents, especially your mom, would be completely crushed if they never saw their grandchildren again."

Sister Simmons' talk did make more sense in the context of deciding how much contact to have with Brian's angry and abusive family. She and Brian hadn't discussed the question, but she was grateful they lived so far away. She didn't know how they would have handled it if they had lived close enough that Brian's complete withdrawal from family would have been obvious. As it was, they had several months before the decision about going to Michigan for Thanksgiving would come up again.

"You think I want my father to be around my children?" Brian said.

"I was thinking more of your mother," Maria said. Peggy Anderson would be devastated if they kept their children away. Maria's contempt for her mother-in-law struggled with her compassion for a grandmother's feelings. Right now, the compassion was winning. "We wouldn't ever leave them alone with him."

"How do you have that conversation with your kids?" Brian demanded. "Hey kids, you know how we've told you to never let anyone touch your private parts? Well, your grandpa is the sort of creep who does things like that. Try and love him as your grandpa but never give him a hug. If you know anyone else who does stuff like that, completely avoid them, but the rules are different because he's your grandpa. How does that work? And if Uncle Cliff is still living there, do we take a cattle prod with us and zap him if he so much as looks at Noah?"

Maria looked away. "I don't know. I don't know how to handle it. But they're family. You can't completely abandon family."

"Sister Simmons says we can," Brian said.

"It's going to be a while before we have to make a decision," Maria said.

"We ought to talk to the kids," Brian said.

"Oh?"

"They've noticed something is going on with me. I tell myself I've been able to slip all this stuff past Noah, but every so often he looks at me funny, and I can tell he's wondering. Hannah is so sensitive she's practically telepathic, and she's confused. Ruth is pretending she doesn't notice anything, but she talks too much to ever really keep her feelings to herself," Brian said. "With summer break coming up, they're going to be home all the time, and we probably ought to let them know what's going on."

"What do you want to tell them?" Maria asked apprehensively.

"Age appropriate stuff, Maria. Come on, give me some credit! We've talked to them in the past about depression, and how my pills helped. We'll just tell them that I'm talking to a special doctor who helps people with their feelings, and maybe it will help my depression and we'll all be happier. Something like that," Brian said.

"That sounds okay," Maria said. "Should we talk to them after dinner?"

"Sure," said Brian, as they reached their house. Noah burst out of the front door, waving an Oreo at them.

Brian cleared his throat nervously as his three children, seated in a row on the couch, regarded him with varying levels of boredom. He cast a desperate look at Maria.

"Perhaps we could start with a prayer," she said.

"That sounds great," Brian said. "Ruth, would you offer an opening prayer?"

Ruth prayed.

"We needed to talk to you kids," Brian began, when Hannah put her hand in the air. "Yes, Hannah?"

"Aren't we supposed to have an opening song, too?"

They sang an opening song.

"Okay, um, we wanted to talk to you kids about some things that are going on," Brian said. "You remember in the past we've talked to you about a problem I have that's called depression. Do any of you remember what depression is?"

Three blank stares replied. Noah started to fidget.

"Depression is a problem I have with my emotions. It makes me mad or sad and sometimes I didn't know why. I've been taking pills to help make it better, but I still had some trouble. I found a special kind of doctor called a therapist who is helping me work on my problems." Brian paused as a new concern occurred to him. "This isn't something you talk to your friends about, kids. This is a family matter. If you have questions, you should talk to me or your mom, but please don't go telling your friends and their parents about this, okay?"

"Colton is my friend," Noah said.

"I know he's your friend," Brian said. "Please don't tell him or his mom about this, okay?"

"Is this a secret?" Ruth asked.

"Not exactly a secret," Brian said, wishing Maria would jump in. "But there are some things we don't tell everyone because it's none of their business."

"Like how much money mom makes?" Ruth asked.

"Yes, exactly like that," Brian said.

"Is it a bad secret?" Hannah asked.

"Not exactly," Brian said. "It's just something we don't want to talk about right now."

"Does that mean it's a good secret?" Hannah persisted.

"It might turn out to be a good thing," Brian said.

"The doctor will help you not get sad or mad anymore?" Hannah asked.

"That could happen," Brian acknowledged.

Hannah went very still.

"What it means for our family this summer is that I'm going to be gone once a week to visit with this special doctor. Ruth, we'll need you to watch your brother and sister when your mom can't be home. Sometimes I may also need some time alone. I want you kids to know that I love to spend time with you, and it's not your fault that sometimes I might need to go for a walk, or stay in my room, or go for a drive, and you won't be able to come along," Brian said.

"We need to be patient with dad while he works to get better," Maria said. "Ruth, remember when you had bronchitis in February and you needed lots of rest before you felt like doing the things you usually like to do? Dad is going to need some special kinds of rest to help him get better too."

Hannah put her hand up.

"Yes, Hannah?" Maria said.

"When dad is all better, he won't get mad anymore? He won't yell anymore?" Hannah asked.

Brian studied Hannah's face. Something deep and wonderful was blooming in her eyes. It took Brian a few seconds to identify it as hope.

Maria glanced at Brian. "We hope that might happen, Hannah. But we won't know for sure until dad has worked with this doctor for a bit longer."

Brian watched Hannah's face as the hope winked out of her eyes. "It will happen, Hannah," he promised recklessly, unwilling to let his daughter down. "It's going to take me some time, but I promise I'll get better and not get angry anymore."

Maria shot him a warning glance for making a promise like that.

"I'll do it," Brian said to Maria. "I'll talk to my therapist about it this week."

"Wow, dad," Hannah said.

Maria glanced away and down, frustrated that he would set Hannah up for disappointment like that. Brian's temper wasn't going away. It was linked to his depression, and that was likely to be a lifelong struggle for him. She wanted him to use the time with his therapist to quit porn, which was the more serious problem. After he had a handle on his porn addiction, he could work on his temper. He'd just put his daughter's priorities above her priorities for him.

"Can I go watch a movie?" Noah asked.

"Go ahead," Maria told him.

Noah left.

"Do you girls have any other questions?" Brian asked Ruth and Hannah.

Ruth shrugged. Hannah shook her head.

"All right. I guess our meeting is over," Brian said.

Hannah went to see what Noah was watching. Ruth called Abby to talk about school.

"That went all right, I guess," Brian said to Maria.

"As well as we could expect," Maria said. "I wish you hadn't promised Hannah you wouldn't get angry anymore. She's going to be so disappointed."

"You're expecting me to fail? I can do this. I've been lots better these past few months," Brian said.

No, he wasn't. He thought he was doing better, but they all still tiptoed around him. Maria said, "I know. It's just a lot to expect."

"It's something you'd expect from a normal person," Brian said.

"It's just better not to have unrealistic expectations," Maria said.

"I can be normal, Maria," Brian insisted. "That's the whole point of therapy. I want to be normal. I want to be able to tell my daughter I'm not going to lose control and scream at her anymore and be believed."

"I believe you," Maria insisted. "It's just that. I don't know."

"I'm not normal," Brian said flatly.

"You are. I mean you will be. I mean I know you're working on it. But what Hannah expects and what you're able to do might be two different things," Maria said.

"You could give me some credit for trying," Brian said.

"I do," Maria said.

"It's all she's ever asked from me, Maria. I wanted to be able to tell her yes. That's all."

"You can't break a promise to Hannah, Brian. It might have been better to not make the promise."

"You don't trust me at all, do you?"

Maria didn't answer.

Maria was deeply asleep when she began hearing a voice from the darkness whispering, "mom?" It took her a minute to realize the voice wasn't part of her dream. She mumbled something in reply without opening her eyes, hoping the speaker would just go back to bed.

"Mom?"

Maria reluctantly opened her eyes. The clock read 12:30 a.m. "What is it Hannah? Why aren't you asleep?" Next to her, Brian's breathing changed and she realized that he had woken up too.

"If dad isn't going to get angry anymore, does that mean he's never going to kill me?" Hannah asked.

Maria came up on an elbow, reaching for Hannah in the darkness. "Your dad was never going to kill you, not even when he got angry. Where did you get such a crazy idea?"

"From Lee," Hannah said.

"When did he tell you that?" Maria asked.

"When Grady and Hunter were trying to kill him. After Aunt Heather and Aunt Crystal made them stop trying to kill Lee, Lee said my dad would kill him and me both if I ever told," Hannah said.

"Told what?"

"About the games Lee made me play. The games Uncle Cliff taught him," Hannah said.

Maria heard Brian stop breathing. "Tell me about the games," she said.

Hannah told her. Maria started screaming inside.

"When did this happen?" Maria asked, calmly sitting up and pulling Hannah onto her lap.

"A long time ago at Thanksgiving. Lee tried to show the games to Mayla too, and that's when Grady and Hunter tried to kill him," Hannah said.

Maria remembered the huge fight between the cousins. No one had ever asked why such a brutal fight had erupted. They'd just made the cousins stop fighting and forced Grady and Hunter to apologize to Lee. Crystal had dropped snide comments about Heather's failure to civilize her sons for the rest of the holiday.

"Sweetheart, why didn't you tell us before now?" Maria asked.

"I was scared of dad," Hannah said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Maria asked, and her voice finally broke.

"I didn't want dad to get mad at you either," Hannah said. "Sometimes he gets really mad. I hate it the most when he gets mad at you."

Maria crushed her in a hug.

"I'm happy we didn't have to go back for Thanksgiving last year," Hannah said. "I didn't want to play Lee's games anymore, but everyone says we have to play nice with him because he doesn't have any brothers or sisters. Do we have to go back this year? I don't want to go."

"No, sweetheart. You never have to see Lee again, ever. I promise," Maria said.

"Gosh, mom! If I never have to see Lee again, and dad's never going to get mad again, my life is going to be just about perfect!" Hannah said, starting to giggle.

"Right. Perfect," Maria said.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Would you come lie down next to me until I fall asleep?"

Maria led Hannah back to bed and tucked them both in. Hannah fell asleep clutching her stuffed tiger with one arm, the other arm flung over her mother. Maria held her hand and didn't sleep at all.

Brian heard every word. They burned into his brain and started repeating on a continuous loop. Thank goodness Maria went with Hannah, because he couldn't stand to face her right now. The evil in his family had reached out and ensnared their little girl. He'd failed. He was the one who took them to Michigan for Thanksgiving every year. It was his nephew who had molested their baby girl. He couldn't face the rest of his guilt right now.

The craving for porn hit him so hard that he curled up, threaded his hands through his hair and yanked, hoping the physical pain would distract him from the yearning that was consuming him. He hadn't entirely quit. He needed porn, and he had it under control now. Besides, he was an innocent victim; his pornography addiction had been forced upon him and he wasn't really to blame. He wasn't using it nearly as often, and he was much more careful about hiding it from Maria. It was like medicine for him. He dosed it out when he couldn't stand the strain of recovery anymore.

But this time it felt dirty. He wouldn't do porn to make himself forget about his daughter's pain and his own failure. He wouldn't. For the first time in his life, Brian faced his temptation head-on and said 'no.' The porn fought back, filling his head with all the images and ideas he'd stored there through the years, inviting him to simply relax into the experience and forget what was bothering him.

He said 'no' again. The porn escalated its attack, insisting he couldn't deal with this alone, laughing at him for even considering the notion.

Still Brian said 'no.' It grew and swallowed his soul. Brian writhed in its grasp. Abruptly, the craving for porn withdrew, and what it left behind was worse. Absolute despair. He'd fooled himself for years, telling himself he had a higher sex drive than normal. He didn't. He used porn to numb despair. And now, in these brief moments without even the temptation to distract him, he saw hell yawning open in front of him. An eternity of despair; devils, pitchforks and flames were pale symbols of the destruction and pain that awaited him.

Abruptly, the temptation returned. Do you see what we save you from? it asked him. We help you forget. Forget, because there's nothing you can do about it. We're your only refuge, the images in his head insisted. If you don't fight us, we can be kind to you. You know how good it can be. Without us, you'd feel that despair all the time. You reject us, and you'll die.

The wages of sin are death.

Then I'll die, Brian said to the temptation. I'll go to hell first.

Hell rose up to meet him.

The pornographic images he stored in his head paraded in front of him, only now the women were divine. One after another, every woman he'd ever looked at and lusted over was individually presented to him as a daughter of God. Some so lost they didn't even hurt anymore, others in the agony of spirit that God hoped would draw them back to him for healing. Each one a magnificent woman trailing tattered clouds of glory brought from God who was her home. And he'd used them, used them the same way his father and uncle had used him. He'd looked at a daughter of God and seen nothing but sex. He'd been so proud that he hadn't sexually abused a child, but hell laughed at his pathetic effort to lessen his sin. His full share of the sins of his generation dropped on him in a crushing chain, one link for every woman he'd degraded with his lust.

The next woman in his head was Maria. He knew she'd been hurting along with him, but he hadn't really known. He was used to his sins; seeing them through her eyes made them freshly new in their thoughtless, selfish evil. All her hopes for an eternal marriage, crushed by him. All her joy in her own purity, dirtied by him. All her dreams of a close relationship, destroyed by him. He saw her over the years as she tried again and again to trust him, and he broke that trust again and again with his temper and his deceit. How slowly her hope had died. He'd had to kill her hope countless times before she couldn't resurrect it anymore. Then he saw his own relief when she quit trusting him, and his anger that she'd ever asked him to be trustworthy, and knew it for the immature, selfish failure that it was. Another chain dropped on him, one link for every time Maria cried because of him.

His children. He saw himself through their eyes, and it startled him to realize how big he was to them; a huge and unpredictable volcano of a father. Noah worshipped his father with a child's innocent insistence, believing that he deserved every thing his father had ever yelled at him. Ruth absorbed all his unpredictability and anger with nonchalance, protecting him from seeing the pain his actions caused her because she didn't trust him enough to care about her pain. And Hannah. He'd trapped Hannah in the psychological abuse of silence and fear with his anger. He knew how she felt because he'd felt exactly the same way and for the same reasons. And, oh God, he'd dumped the cycle into the next generation because he was too selfish to face his own pain and overcome it. He mocked his pretentious pride that he was better than his father when all he'd done was translate his father's sins into new contexts. The links of the third chain were forged from his children's fear in the fire of his anger.

The sins of the fathers will be visited upon the heads of the children . . .

He'd known pornography was a sin; he'd never thought of his anger as a sin. It was just a bad habit, a personality quirk that the people around him had to learn to tolerate. They did learn to tolerate his anger, but at what price? Ruth, trained by him to absorb fear and call it love, marrying an abusive man and pretending everything was fine. Hannah, silent and scared, spending her life alone because she was too sensitive to survive in a relationship. Noah, intent on being just like him, sowing these seeds among his grandchildren.

God, save my children! Pile their sins on my head. I'll take them all. But, oh God, don't let my children suffer because of what they learned from me.

. . . unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

You can't do that to my children and grandchildren! They're innocent!

They were only innocent until they did what he had done, and adopted their father's sins as their own. Then his children wouldn't be innocent anymore, and would deserve the same fires of hell that gaped open to devour him.

The sins of the fathers.

I know I've sinned!

The sins of the fathers.

There's nothing I can do!

The sins of the fathers.

Then save me from my sins! Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, save me from my sins!

And Brian was standing on the edge of hell's chasm, his heavy chains dragging him over the brink. He collapsed in the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus? He whimpered the word, too crushed to speak. A hand reached down to help him stand, a pierced hand. The chains were gone.

A flood of light swept him. If seeing his sins as God saw them had exhausted him, this light drained him of everything he had left until he was a husk. And then the light began filling him. It burned, and Brian had never felt such exquisite, sweet pain. And in the next seconds, he realized it wasn't pain, but joy, and they were the same thing because he didn't have the capacity to feel joy until he was transformed and the transformation hurt.

When the light began to fade, Brian tried to hold on to it. He was being left behind. He wanted to stay with the light; spend eternity reveling in the light.

Don't go!

Come follow me.

I am! I'm coming with you now!

Bring forth the fruits of repentance.

Here? I have to stay here?

And the light was gone. Spent by the ordeal of being scraped clean and refilled, Brian drifted towards sleep. An annoying beep came from the other side of reality and interrupted him. It was his alarm clock. It was time to get up and get the children ready for school.

Chapter 74

2010-02-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

"How are you feeling?" Debbie Bodily asked Amanda Grayson as she walked up next to her and picked up a large Ziploc bag.

"Fine, thanks. The baby is healthy and I'm having an easy pregnancy," Amanda answered, stuffing a washcloth, toothpaste, and bar of soap into her own Ziploc bag. She handed it to Heather Arnold, the next woman on the assembly line, who added a toothbrush and comb before passing it on.

"I hope you don't mind that I added your name to the list of women who are expecting a baby," Tracy Nesbitt said from across the table where she was folding hand towels. "It comes around every Sunday."

"There's a list?" Amanda said, accepting another Ziploc.

"It helps me coordinate meal assignments," Debbie Bodily said. "I'm the compassionate service leader in charge of helping out new mothers and anyone else who needs it. The ward brings in three meals, starting the day you get home from the hospital, unless you want the meals at another time. Is that all right?"

"You're bringing me free food and you want to know if that's okay with me? Of course it's all right!" Amanda said. "Are there a lot of women expecting babies?"

"Seven babies are due before yours," Debbie said cheerfully. "We're having a bumper crop of babies this year! They'll need to add another nursery in a couple of years."

"Wow," said Amanda, and forgot to put toothpaste in the bag.

Heather Arnold handed the bag back to her and pointed at the toothpaste.

"Oh, right. Sorry about that," Amanda said.

"I think it's cute that you and your neighbor are both expecting baby girls on the same week," Heather said.

"We are?"

Debbie nodded. "Nicole Benton, who lives across the street from you, is due two days after you. She's in Young Womens, and we don't get the Young Women leaders out to Relief Society activities very often. Sounds like you don't know her very well."

"We've waved at each other a few times," Amanda said. "I guess I'll have to go talk to her. How exciting for us! Her little boys are really cute."

Dixie Nixon, the Relief Society President, walked up to the table, surveying the stacks of supplies. "Looks like we're going to run out of combs and soap before anything else."

"We've got loads of hand towels," Tracy said, pulling another armful out of a box.

"We'll save them for the next time we assemble hygiene kits. By my count, we've got five dozen hygiene kits. Not bad at all," Dixie said.

"Let's get them packed in boxes and stowed in my trunk. I'll take them to the Distribution Center this week," Debbie said.

"I can help carry boxes," Amanda said.

"You sure?" Dixie asked, looking at her belly.

"I'm better at carrying boxes than I would be at tying a quilt," Amanda said, nodding towards the quilting frames set up in the other half of the Church gym.

"Thanks. It's good to have your help," Dixie said, handing her a box.

"Anything I can do," Amanda offered cheerfully.

"Do you mean that? Because Sister Hollis sprained her ankle last week. She refuses to go to a doctor because she's confused by her Medicare benefits. Her ankle is all sorts of colors. I've been in touch with her grandchildren, but they can't convince her to see a doctor either. Would you be comfortable coming with me to visit her? Would you be able to give her some advice and maybe wrap it for her?" Dixie asked.

"I'd be happy to come with you. I've got extra ankle braces and wraps. I'll bring her one," Amanda said.

"Thank you so much. Sister Hollis is a dear woman, but she gets nervous about doctors. If you could help her with her ankle, it would be a blessing," Dixie said.

"I can go any evening this week," Amanda said. "I'm home after six."

"I'll give her a call and let you know when we can visit. Thanks again."

Stephanie Simmons was working on her sacrament meeting talk. Or she was trying to work on her sacrament meeting talk. Mostly, she was thinking about the pan of store-bought brownies under her bed, next to the donuts. No, she was not thinking of them. She was thinking about the parable of the ten virgins, and how it proved that if you didn't do all the work yourself, no one else would help you.

There were actually two pans of brownies, but she was only going to eat one tonight. The second one she would save and think about. She wouldn't eat it, but knowing it was there was as good as eating it.

Five of the ten virgins were fun, carefree, and had a good time. It didn't say that in the story, but that's what they looked like in the painting, and what everyone said when they learned about the ten virgins in Church. Actually, everyone said the five foolish virgins were irresponsible, but Stephanie assumed that meant they had fun, because being responsible wasn't any fun at all. The five virgins didn't do everything right, but they had a lot of friends. Friends are overrated. None of their friends loaned them oil when the bridegroom came and they missed the wedding. Stephanie did not understand why you had to have oil to go to a wedding, but that's the way things worked back then. Having too much fun eventually resulted in missing out on the spiritual things. Spiritual things weren't fun, but you were supposed to want them more than you wanted to have fun. You also weren't supposed to say that spiritual things weren't fun. They were joyful. There was a difference between fun and joyful, and if you were a wise virgin, you wanted joy instead of fun.

Stephanie wasn't stupid. She knew about bulimia. But she wasn't bulimic. For one thing, she wasn't trying to lose weight. And for another thing, she wasn't out of control. She only took her vacations from being perfect twice a month, on the first and third Fridays. Other people were out with friends on Friday evenings. Stephanie didn't have friends. That didn't matter because it made her more like the wise virgins, who were such lousy friends they wouldn't share their oil. Stephanie wouldn't share her oil either.

The real problem in the parable was that the bridegroom was late. If he'd shown up on time, everyone would have had enough oil to go to the wedding. But no one blamed him for messing up everyone's schedule. Everyone blamed the five virgins who brought money instead of extra oil. Stephanie felt some sympathy for those five virgins, but immediately squelched it. It was their own fault they got left out.

Her brownies and donuts interrupted her thoughts all day. She'd planned what to buy since Tuesday. While she only ate her vacation food two days a month, she could spend two weeks thinking about it and deciding what to eat and when to do it. Planning it out was as satisfying as actually eating it all and then throwing up. Usually, she stayed awake after everyone else went to sleep, so keyed up by anticipation that she was never in any danger of falling asleep. Being alone with just her brownies and donuts was close to heaven.

Stephanie would have been a wise virgin, because she was responsible and did everything right. But going to a wedding didn't sound fun. It sounded like something you should do with friends. What if she went to the wedding with the other wise virgins and the bridegroom, and no one talked to her? If she was a foolish virgin who got shut out of the wedding, she could wander off alone and no one would think it was pathetic that she was in a crowd of people at a wedding with no one to talk to.

If no one talked to her at the wedding, and she didn't know anyone there, she could eat all the cake she wanted. Being at the wedding could actually be one of her vacations. She would need to find a private place to throw up afterwards, but that shouldn't be too hard. Stephanie considered this compromise position, and then rejected it. She liked to be alone when she took her vacations. It gave her more time to savor it. If other people were around, she would still have to act like one of the five wise virgins.

Stephanie wrote the talk that one of the wise virgins would approve of. Tonight, when she ate the brownies and donuts, she could admit to herself she would rather be a foolish virgin who got to go home alone rather than spending an evening at a party. But right now, she was still a wise virgin.

Carly led the opening hymn, which was Come Follow Me, and then sat back down between her husband and Danna on the stand. She was wearing a straight corduroy skirt with a blue buttondown shirt today, her most serious and businesslike outfit. People as short as she was could usually never aspire to anything beyond cute and perky, but she made an effort to look more serious than usual for her sacrament meeting talk today. It had taken a tremendous effort, but her talk today helped her put to rest the uncomfortable feelings that had been plaguing her about the way her parents had responded to Suzanne. She'd really had to wrestle with her own inclinations to convince herself that her parents had done the right things, and that Christ agreed with them, but she'd succeeded.

Next to her, Danna was wearing a flowered skirt she'd borrowed from Stephanie, and an off-white summer sweater that Carly had suggested she wear. She looked beautiful; just like all the other girls in the ward.

Carly loved to watch the people in the ward from her place on the stand as ward chorister. The Larsen boys were jabbing each other with pens. Monica Merrit's husband was home from Afghanistan, and spent most of sacrament meeting making his baby laugh instead of listening. Sister Hollis sat in the back even though she was hard of hearing. The Cunninghams sat with perfect reverence and hardly even blinked. One of the Benton boys let out a belch so loud she could hear it on the stand, along with the accompanying ripple of giggles. Tracy Nesbitt was wearing too much lipstick, and the dress she was wearing had barely been in style fifteen years ago. Brian Anderson was here for the second week in a row. His wife suggested he'd been sick for months, but she'd seen him several times outside, and he didn't look one bit sick. Lisa Kirkham's baby escaped the pew and was halfway to the stand before Lisa caught up with her. Heather Arnold was tickling her husband's neck.

Carly was so absorbed in the congregation that she nearly missed Brother Lopez asking Brother Steele to stand as he was called to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher. She raised her hand to the sustaining square as a reflex, carefully keeping the surprise and disappointment off her face. She never aspired to callings because that was prideful, but she would have been happy and humbled to serve as Gospel Doctrine teacher. Some of her excitement about speaking in sacrament meeting evaporated in disappointment. After her talk, they would probably regret calling Brother Steele instead of her.

Danna tugged on her flowered skirt again, trying to make it reach her ankles. Her arms were bare too. Normal clothing left her exposed and vulnerable, not only showing her elbows and ankles, but making her look like everyone else. She wasn't safely hidden. Part of her wanted her black, tentlike clothing that left only her hands, neck and face on display, but the other part of her swooped at the chance to be like everyone else.

Her talk was folded in fourths and stuffed in her scriptures where she would stop fiddling with it. Writing her talk had been a flood of light and happiness. With her painting of Christ helping the children at the river presiding in her room, she'd pulled out a couple handouts from her seminary teacher along with her scriptures, and written a talk about how much Jesus loved her no matter what. When she'd read it out loud to her mirror, she'd been surprised and satisfied that it sounded exactly like a sacrament meeting talk should sound.

She didn't get nervous until after Yancy and Austin had given their brief talks and Stephanie was giving her talk about the parable of the ten virgins. Danna was too preoccupied with her own fidgets to listen very well. She unfolded her talk and smoothed it out several times.

Stephanie said 'amen' and walked back to her seat. Danna whispered that she did a good job as she passed her on the way to the podium. Danna put her talk on the podium and looked up. There were a lot of people, more than it looked like when she was sitting down. With a nervous titter, that was the comment that burst out of her: "there sure a lot of people here today."

A few polite chuckles and understanding smiles gave her a boost of confidence and she began reading her talk. "My talk today is about the stuff Jesus taught us about love. Jesus loves us, no matter what we do. Please turn to John chapter eight because I'm going to talk about how nice Jesus was to the woman taken in adultery."

Danna read the story, and repeated several different ways that Jesus hadn't condemned the woman taken in adultery, but gave her a second chance. "Jesus will help us obey his commandments by giving us lots of second chances. That's what forgiveness is all about. When Jesus forgives us, he gives us a second chance. Jesus can tell us that we've done something wrong without condemning us. That makes Jesus different from most people, who like to yell at us when we do something wrong. Jesus is really patient, even when people don't repent as fast as they should."

Danna accidentally caught Taylor Chuffey's eye, and Taylor smiled at her. Danna smiled back, but it broke her train of thought and she had to say 'um' a lot as she found her place in her talk. It was nice for Taylor to smile at her, so she didn't mind losing her place.

"One way Jesus is nice to us even when we do something wrong is by sending us the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is called a Comforter, and he tells us right from wrong. If we listen to the Holy Ghost, we won't do as many dumb things. But the Holy Ghost is really nice about it too, that's why he's called the Comforter."

"Jesus died for our sins and for our pain." Danna swallowed hard because tears were pricking the backs of her eyes. She didn't like it when speakers got squeaky-voiced, and she didn't want to talk like that. She resolved to not mind at all when someone got teary and squeaky-voiced in the future because now she understood why they did. Sometimes you said something so true that your emotions wanted to immediately second everything you were saying.

"Jesus died for our sins and for our pain," Danna repeated. "He loves us. We are his sons and daughters. He wants us to be like him because he is happy and full of love and he wants us to be happy and full of love. That's what the commandments are for. Following the commandments makes us more like Jesus, and then we're happier. I know Jesus is my Savior, and I really like my seminary teacher and everything he teaches me about the scriptures. I know President Monson is a prophet, the Book of Mormon is scripture, and the Church is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Danna sat down as the organist played the introduction for the intermediary hymn, I Believe in Christ. Danna shared a book with Stephanie while her mother led the singing. She couldn't sing all the words because she had tear prickles and voice squeak again.

After the intermediary hymn, her mother walked straight to the podium. After she told the story about how she hadn't wanted to answer the phone when Brother Lopez called to ask them to speak in sacrament meeting, she half-turned to Danna and said, "I'm so glad my daughter chose to speak on obedience today. You're going to think we wrote our talks to fit together, but we didn't. It must have been the Spirit guiding us. I'm going to talk about how we should handle someone else's disobedience in a Christlike way."

Danna looked at her talk, puzzled. She'd talked about love, except for that little bit about obedience at the very end of her talk. Did everyone think she'd talked about obedience? She looked back at her mother.

"While it's true that Christ did not condemn the woman taken in adultery, an exception like that is Christ's prerogative; there is no indication in the scriptures that Christ expects us to likewise excuse sinners without any recrimination or consequences. I'd like to specifically address the difficulties that parents may face when their children make incorrect choices.

"Many of you don't know this, but I have an older sister named Suzanne. My sister chose to rebel against the truths and standards taught in our home. By her conduct, she was destroying the Christlike atmosphere my parents strove to maintain for all of their children. When faced with the choice between renouncing her sins or continuing in them, she chose to leave. Brothers and sisters, it broke my heart to lose my older sister like that," Carly said, pausing to get her emotions under control.

This was what happened to Aunt Suzanne? Danna only knew about Aunt Suzanne from an old family photo in an album, taken when her mother was a little girl. Her mother dismissed her questions about the stranger in the picture. Danna largely forgot about her. Her aunts and uncles weren't so wonderful that she regretted not having another one. The idea that her mother was related to a sinner was both confusing and funny.

"I know many of you have faced this same trial, either in the families you have now, or the family you were raised in. What does Jesus teach us about tolerating the sinners in our midst? In Luke 14:26, he said, 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' Now, I'm sure when Christ said 'hate' he didn't mean to gossip about them or persecute them. No negative word about my sister has ever crossed my lips. I love her and miss her.

"Christ meant that we should put his standards ahead of the standards of our own family. If we try to rationalize or excuse the behavior of our family members that contravene Christ's commandments, then we are worshipping a false idol by setting up a family member as our god. We should not seek the love and approval of a family member ahead of Christ's love and approval. Our lives should be governed by Christ's standards, not by the standards of a wayward family member.

"If we fail to reprove sharply when moved upon by the Holy Ghost, then we are watering down the Lord's standards. In Matthew 5:29 we read, 'And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.' Living the Lord's standards may even require us to get rid of someone who refuses to live those standards with us.

"As hard as this doctrine is, I know these are Christ's teachings. While I miss my sister, I also know that my parents had to set firm boundaries to protect their other children. Who knows what her influence might have been on me if she had stayed? My parents might have lost other children to sin and degraded living."

Danna was staring at her hands, wishing that her elbows and ankles were draped in black, hidden and disguised. She knew her mother hated her because of what those boys had done to her in sixth grade. But she hadn't known that she was only in the family on probation, to be evicted if anyone else started following her example. She looked sideways at Stephanie, sitting primly with her arms folded across her childlike body. Good thing Stephanie wasn't boy crazy, or their mom would likely blame Danna, even though Danna wasn't boy crazy either. Or she was crazy, but it was fear crazy and not love crazy. Boys stared at her chest no matter how loose her shirts were, and she cringed when they looked at her. She didn't understand the boy crazy girls who wore tight shirts on purpose and liked it when boys noticed. Didn't they know what happened to you if boys liked your chest?

Maybe Austin was following her example. A few months ago, Danna needed a battery. There weren't any in the kitchen drawer, and she was looking under Austin's bed for his remote control car to get the battery when a stack of magazine pages fell on her. They were pages of swimsuit ads, torn from her mother's clothing catalogues. Page after page of bikini ads, with a few pages of underwear ads tucked in. She'd stuffed them back up into Austin's bed frame and left without the battery. If her mother found those pages, would she blame Danna?

Her mother continued, "in this day of loose morals and rampant sin, we must be guided by the Holy Ghost as we keep our children from being exposed to and ensnared by Satan's most popular temptations. My parents made a hard choice, but it was the right one. I pray for strength as I also try to raise a righteous seed in this day of sin and error. I will close by referring back to the story that Danna used; the story of the woman taken in adultery. Yes, Christ told the adulterous woman that he did not condemn her, but he also told her to 'go and sin no more.' Without that injunction to sin no more, Christ's mercy would be nothing more than licentiousness. I hope that all of us can learn to put Christ's standards above the wicked standards of the world, even when it is a beloved family member who seems to be adopting those standards."

Carly closed her talk and sat down, smiling at her husband who got up to talk. Spencer gave the clock a pointed look and said, "well, my plan worked. It looks like we're out of time. Rather than cut into Sunday School, I'll bear my testimony and let all of you out of here on time." Spencer bore a short testimony and sat back down as Carly got up to lead the closing hymn.

After sacrament meeting ended, Danna hurried towards the door, stopping a few times as people told her how much they liked her talk. She thanked them as quickly as she could and kept going. She needed to go home and change back into her black clothes.

Chapter 73

2010-02-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

Maria Anderson was deadheading the tulips that had been turning brown for nearly a month now. The blooms were gone and the leaves had collapsed into the dirt. She put another handful into the garbage bag she was toting with her, and then stood up and stretched, waving at Nicole Benton who was watching her boys play in the front yard. Nicole waved back, then a second later she went into the house, leaving her front door open with the boys outside.

The little Benton boys raced across the lawn. The older boy caught up with the younger boy and gave him a terrific shove. The younger boy went sprawling, and came up laughing. He bounced back up, and chased his brother back across the yard. The next time the older boy tackled him, the younger one went down on the concrete and stayed down.

Maria dropped her gardening trowel and started walking across the street when the little one didn't get back up. He was behind the car parked in the driveway, where Nicole couldn't see him if she happened to glance out her front window. When his head came up, Maria broke into a run because she could see his nose and mouth were covered in blood.

"Go get mommy, Jayden," Maria told the older boy as she picked up Carson. Jayden stood and watched as she set Carson on her lap and tipped him up to see where the blood was coming from. With his head back, he coughed a spray of blood at her and started wheezing.

"Get your mommy, Jayden. Hurry now. That's a good boy," Maria said, standing up to take Carson into the house.

Jayden turned around just as Nicole appeared at the front door. "Jayden? Where's Carson?"

Maria came around the back of the car. "He fell. He needs you."

Nicole dashed down the porch steps to the driveway. She took one look at him and turned back to the house. "I'm going to get his inhaler. I'll be right back. See if you can calm him down."

Maria crooned a lullaby to Carson, rocking him gently, blotting the blood off his face with his t-shirt. Besides skinning his chin and nose, he also had a nosebleed. Maria let it bleed. She didn't know if the nosebleed was triggering the asthma attack because it made it hard for him to breathe, but she was not going to pinch his nose shut when he was gasping like he was.

Then Nicole was back, giving her a kitchen towel for the blood, pulling Carson onto her lap. She put the inhaler in his mouth and gently closed his mouth around it. "It's a breath actuated inhaler," Nicole explained to Maria. "It automatically gives him a puff of medicine when he inhales."

"Does he do this very often?" Maria asked.

"More often than he should. His pediatrician wanted to try a different medication because of the side effects. But this is the second time he's needed his inhaler this month. I'm going to call his pediatrician and tell him we need to go back to the other medication. Poor little kid." Nicole wrapped Carson more tightly in her arms as his breathing evened out.

"Carson got a owie," Jayden said, bending over to look at the blood on Carson's face.

"Yes, he did. And we are going to be nice to Carson, aren't we?" Nicole said.

"I nice brother," Jayden said.

"I'm sure you are," Nicole said.

"You handled that like a pro," Maria said. "It must be a bit scary at times."

"It is, but we're getting used to it. I'm trying not to coddle him too much. The whole point of treating asthma is to let him live a normal life. Spring is hard with the pollen, but winter was hard because of all the viruses. Then the bees come out in the summer and he's got that scary allergy to bee stings," Nicole said. "There's always a reason to worry about him, but I still want him to be a normal little kid."

"I like play outside," Jayden announced.

"Go!" Carson said, pushing off his mother's lap and standing up. He ran off across the lawn again, with Jayden in pursuit.

"You know what Carly Simmons did last week?" Nicole asked, pointing towards the Simmons' yard. "She pulled out all the flower bushes along our property line. She had beautiful roses and lavender bushes, and they're all gone now. She said she didn't want to attract bees near our yard and she would put in some ornamental grasses and non-flowering bushes. Wasn't that sweet of her?"

"That is really nice of her," Maria said.

"People have been so good about Carson's health problems. Every so often I get more advice than I want, like when Brother Harvey brought me a diet he'd worked out that would cure Carson's asthma by feeding him fennel extract and barley." Nicole laughed. "But mostly it's been heartwarming to see how everyone rallies around to help when there's a problem. I love our ward."

"We do have a great ward," Maria said.

"It's wonderful to know you can rely on people to help you through serious problems, isn't it?" Nicole said, standing up.

"It really is," Maria said.

Jayden knocked Carson over again. Carson clambered back to his feet. "Those two little monkeys," Nicole said.

"How are you feeling?" Maria asked, nodding towards Nicole's growing belly.

"We're hoping that this one will be calmer," Nicole said, patting her belly.

"Good luck with that," Maria said.

"Yeah, I know."

"I'm going to go finish those tulips before it gets dark," Maria said.

"Thanks for coming over to help with Carson," Nicole said.

"No problem at all. I'll see you at Young Women's tomorrow night," Maria said, walking back across the street.

"Jayden! Quit pushing him over!" Nicole said, walking over to pull Jayden off Carson. "Let's go get band-aids."

Maria put her gardening gloves back on as Nicole took her boys into the house. She envied Nicole, whose biggest challenges were on display for the whole world to see and support. Maria felt crushed by her own need for silence. She pulled out another handful of rotted tulip leaves, the words she couldn't say to anyone echoing inside. Instead of fading, the echoes grew louder and louder until she was afraid she would someday blurt them out without even realizing she'd spoken aloud. Then she would be even more isolated than she was now – ostracized as the woman with those unspeakable kinds of problems in her home.

She couldn't even picture a normal conversation involving her worries. How would that even happen? They would be talking about how nice it was for Carly to pull out her rose bushes, and then Nicole would casually say, "so, do you still worry about coming home from work to find your children screaming in horror next to your husband's dead, blood-soaked body?" And she would answer and say, "oh no, Brian assures me he isn't suicidal anymore. I've left the knives home for a couple months now and my husband is still alive. Isn't that nice?"

Or, "I heard it was a few months after you found porn on Brian's computer before you felt like he was really committed to making the life-changing effort to truly quit porn. Those months must have been hard." And she would answer and say, "Oh, they were awful. I bounced from anger to devastation and back again as I realized my husband could destroy our eternal marriage by simply refusing to do anything and I was completely powerless to save it. But all's well that ends well!"

Or, "do you hear much from your evil, abusive in-laws anymore?" And she would answer and say, "actually, I got an email from my mother-in-law telling us that she and my father-in-law have been called to teach the Marriage and Family Relations Class because they've been married forty years now. They're such an encouraging example in this day of easy divorce."

Maybe that was the reason people didn't talk about these sorts of problems. The conversation wasn't even plausible. What she really wanted to do was to tell a woman who would simply nod and say, "me too, and I survived," and then hold her while she cried. But she could never find such a person because she was being as quiet as Maria, and for the same reasons.

Maria finished with the tulips, and dumped the dead leaves into the greenwaste bin. She dusted off her pants, put her gloves and trowel away, and went in the house, accompanied by the echoes of the words she would never say.

"Did you find his shoes?" Nicole called to her husband as she finished touching up her lipstick.

"Yeah, they were in the oven," Jason said as he plopped Carson down on the bed. "Are you ready?"

"Almost." Nicole smoothed her cashmere sweater over her belly. At five months, she was pregnant enough to look fat, but not pregnant enough to have a cute baby bump. "I'm going to melt in this sweater."

"Then change clothes," Jason said.

"It's the prettiest thing I own that still fits over my belly," Nicole said. "I wish it was pastel instead of deep plum. The color is wrong for springtime."

Jason didn't say anything. Practical suggestions were never a good idea when a woman was trying to decide what to wear, especially when most of the choices were maternity clothes that had already been worn for two pregnancies. He was torn between being miffed that Nicole was preening so much to go to lunch with an ex-boyfriend, and a desire to show off his beautiful wife to the man who had let her get away.

"I'll go buckle these guys in," Jason said, scooping up Carson and calling for Jayden as he headed to the garage. Carson's hair was wetly combed in a neat part that would likely last all through the lunch. Jayden's hair had already escaped its grooming and returned to its customary bush.

"We go inna car?" Jayden asked.

"Yep. Come here and let me wash off your milk mustache," Jason said, putting Carson down.

Jayden submitted to having his face washed while Carson toddled to the door and shrieked because someone had said "go in the car" a full second ago and he was still in the house.

Jason freed Carson from the house and herded the boys into their carseats. He snapped the last buckle as Nicole appeared, still wearing the plum cashmere sweater over maternity jeans. "You look really nice," Jason said.

"Thanks, honey."

Jason pulled out of the driveway on the way to Olive Garden, which was the nicest restaurant they could think of that still didn't mind if you brought children. Nicole's old college roommate and her husband, Marcie and Ryan Chappelle, insisted that they bring their children with them when they met for lunch. Jason suspected they hadn't seen two toddlers in a restaurant since leaving Utah, and had no idea what was coming.

Jason didn't mind bringing the boys. They would make a nice excuse to leave early if the lunch was awkward, which he expected it would be. Ryan was Nicole's old boyfriend. She'd broken up with Ryan to date Jason, and Ryan had rebounded right into a relationship with Nicole's roommate Marcie. The four of them had gotten married within two months of each other, and not seen each other since.

Marcie and Ryan were in the waiting area as Jason walked in with his family. Nicole and Marcie squealed as they saw each other, and fell into each others' arms for hugs. Ryan put out his hand, Jason shook it, and they nodded at each other with polite greetings.

"Oh my gosh! That's so cute that you're pregnant!" Marcie gushed, putting a hand on Nicole's belly.

"This one is a girl," Nicole said.

"And these are your boys?" Marcie asked, crouching down and holding out a hand. "My name is Marcie. What's your name?"

"This is Jayden," Nicole said as Jayden hid behind her leg, "and the younger one is Carson."

After a few seconds, Carson consented to give Marcie a high five before putting his thumb back in his mouth.

"Good-looking boys," Ryan said to Jason.

"Thanks," said Jason.

"Is this your party?" the hostess asked.

They followed the hostess to a booth, which had to be changed to a table to accommodate a booster seat and a high chair.

"No! I sit on chair!" Jayden insisted, pushing the booster seat onto the floor.

"Isn't he so cute and independent!" Marcie said.

Jason pushed the booster seat under the table. When the server took their drink orders, Jason asked for two plastic cups with lids and straws, and handed back the glasses that he'd already taken from the boys' place settings.

"Tell me all the news," Marcie gushed. "I feel like I've lost contact with everyone. Do you hear anything from Andi or Lisa or anyone else we went to college with?"

"Andi is living in Ogden. She married a dentist, and they've got one baby. I only ever see her on Facebook," Nicole said.

"I have got to get on Facebook!" Marcie exclaimed. "I don't know why I haven't just jumped in already!"

"Lisa joined Doctors Without Borders and spends all her time in third world countries helping people affected by war, epidemics and natural disasters, and things like that," Nicole said. "I got a Christmas letter from her last year. She'd been to four different countries, and is working on getting her midwife certification so she can run OB clinics in Africa. I checked her blog page after the earthquake in Haiti, and she said she wasn't going to Haiti, but she knew several of the medical teams who did fly to Haiti."

"Pardon me while I pick my jaw up off the floor!" Marcie said. "I love Lisa!"

"We donate money to Doctors Without Borders," Jason said.

"Brilliant," Ryan said. "If you can't get out there yourself, the next best thing is to help out financially so someone else can get the job done."

"Oh, I just can't wait until we're in a position to really do some good!" Marcie said. "It's so frustrating to be poor college students who can't afford a thing!"

Jason was not a good judge of women's clothing, but he didn't think Marcie's color-coordinated blouse and pants were from a thrift store.

"How is medical school?" Jason asked Ryan politely, while doling out another handful of pretzels to Carson and picking up Jayden's silverware again.

Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm surviving the grind. I'm looking forward to rotations this next year as a nice break from the classroom and books. The residents tell me it's even more pressure, but any change of pace is going to be welcome, even if the new pace is fast forward."

Marcie laughed so loudly that Jason deduced this was a standard joke. He smiled politely, and untangled Carson's hand from his silverware and set it out of his reach. Carson screamed and lunged for it.

Jason picked it up. "No, no, Carson. It dad's silverware."

"What specialty are you pursuing?" Nicole asked. "Marcie said something about neurosurgery in her email."

"I would be pleased with a neurosurgery rotation, but more realistically I'll rotate through general surgery, with a chance to cultivate a relationship with a neurosurgeon. I'm fascinated with the structure of the brain, and how slight variations in cerebral anatomy can lead to dysfunction not only in motor skills, but in interpersonal relationship skills. I plan to devote my career to understanding how autistic spectrum disorders affect, and are affected by, the structure of the brain. I've been avidly following some cutting edge research that analyzes a series of morphological studies created by magnetic resonance imaging that compare the brain function and structure of ASD individuals with individuals who possess normal brain function. Most typically, someone with my career goals would specialize in psychology, but I'm more attracted to the neurobiological aspects of the disorder," Ryan said. "Wouldn't it be miraculous if someday MRI scans could provide a way to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention methodology by studying the way the brain changes in response to the therapy? It would take some of the guesswork out of the way autism is treated, and help fine tune therapy."

During this speech, Jayden hid under the table, Carson howled because he wanted to get out of his high chair and hide under the table too, Nicole wiped up a small spill from Carson's cup, and Jayden dumped out Nicole's purse.

"That really sounds interesting," Jason said, waving Nicole back into her chair and picking up the contents of her purse.

"Autism? That's such an important area for research!" Nicole said.

Marcie nodded. "Ryan's nephew is autistic. He was diagnosed during Ryan's first year of medical school, and it simply broke everyone's hearts to watch that funny, engaging little boy regress and lose his language and social skills. That was when Ryan decided he'd use his medical career to study autism."

"Hi! How is everyone doing? My name is Aaron, and I'll be your server today. Have you had a chance to look at the menu?" a skinny young man in his late teens asked. "Looks like we've got a couple of youngsters here. Did you see the children's menu?"

"We did," Jason said. "The kids will split a cheese pizza. Do you have plastic plates?"

"Nope, sorry," Aaron said.

"Okay, whatever plates you bring will be fine." Jason looked around to see who wanted to order first.

"Go ahead," Ryan invited him.

"I'll have the lasagna," Jason said.

Nicole ordered a grilled chicken Caesar salad.

"I love Olive Garden salad!" Marcie said, and ordered the same thing.

Jayden stood up on his chair to get a better look at the breadsticks, and sneezed on them.

"Let me get you a fresh basket," Aaron said, scooping up the bread basket.

"I want bread!" Jayden wailed.

Jason snagged a breadstick out of the basket and handed it to him. Carson reached towards the bread and grunted insistently. If it had only been their family, Jason would have gotten Carson a breadstick too. But because they were at lunch with a couple who did not have children, and who might think it was unsanitary to feed a sneeze-coated breadstick to a child who hadn't produced the sneeze, Jason told Carson to wait. Carson howled, and tried to climb out of his high chair to reach Jayden's breadstick. Jayden serenely took another bite while Nicole tried to distract Carson with a toy car.

"I'll have the Tour of Italy," Ryan said quickly, folding his menu. "If you could hurry back with the bread, I'm sure our little friend here would appreciate it."

"Of course, sir, I'll just be a minute," Aaron said.

"How about you?" Ryan asked Jason. "What have you been up to these past few years?"

"I work at Utah Valley Hospital in the lab," Jason said, and hoped Ryan would leave it at that. Technically, Jason was under-employed because he had a bachelor's degree in molecular biology, which qualified him to be a medical technologist, but instead he was doing technician work that only required an associate's degree. He'd initially taken the job because his first student loan payments and Jayden were due at the same time and he had no other offers. He'd planned on medical school, not on a job search, and his resumes and interviews were a hurried activity conducted during the crushing disappointment that he wasn't smart enough to be a doctor. The hospital promised that he would be promoted to a technologist position with supervisory responsibilities as soon as a position opened. The promotion hadn't happened because the senior technologists decided not to retire when the economy emptied their retirement savings, and he hadn't been ambitious enough to search for another job.

"Oh, really? What do you do there?" Ryan asked.

"I work with the other medical technologists doing the typical lab work you'd expect in a hospital," Jason shrugged, "biopsies, fluid analyses, stuff like that. How have you liked living on the East Coast?"

"Winters have a lot more snow," Ryan said.

"You're not working as a nurse anymore, are you Nicole?" Marcie asked.

Nicole shook her head. "It's not practical with two and a half little kids. I'm going to go back to work eventually, but if I tried to work now, most of my paycheck would go for daycare, and the rest would cover a cleaning lady and takeout food."

"Isn't that the truth!" Marcie said. "You would not believe how much daycare costs in Boston! That's all the other sisters in the ward talk about."

"Have you been working?" Nicole asked.

"Only at research internships, which don't count because they don't pay anything. My doctoral program barely pays a stipend. If it wasn't for Ryan's parents' generosity, we'd sure have to scrape to make ends meet!" Marcie said.

"Your doctoral program? You didn't mention a doctoral program," Nicole said.

"I didn't? I guess I just assume that everyone knows. I knew I wasn't cut out for actual nursing in a hospital when we did our practicum together, remember? When Ryan decided he was going to study autism, I decided we'd make a good team. I finished up a Masters Degree in Child Development with an emphasis on clinical developmental psychology in a little over a year. Nearly killed myself off! But my advisors were awesome. They let me custom-design my own PhD program, and I'm probably about two years away from defending my dissertation, if things keep going as planned. I've been researching and designing intervention methodologies for autistic toddlers. It's so much fun to be able to compare what Ryan is learning about the brain with what I actually see in the special-needs daycare where I practically live!" Marcie said. "Your boys are absolute gems. I don't get to see such developmentally normal children very often." And she pulled a face at Carson, who laughed and pulled the same face back at her.

"Oh," said Nicole. She didn't have to say anything else because their food arrived, and she busied herself with cutting pizza slices for the boys.

"So have you gotten to see the Bruins play?" Jason asked Ryan.

"Who?" Ryan asked.

"The Bruins. Boston's hockey team. Have you been to any games?" Jason asked.

"Oh, we don't really have time for sports," Ryan said.

Jason went back to his lasagna.

"Isn't this salad wonderful? I tell you what, Boston seafood is good, but I get so homesick for cute little Utah places like this," Marcie said.

"Don't they have Olive Garden in Boston?" Nicole asked.

"Yes, but it tastes different. Have you ever lived outside of Utah?" Marcie asked.

"We spent a summer in Texas," Nicole said.

"Then you know what I mean," Marcie said.

"Carson, don't put your pizza on your head," Jason said, taking the pizza slice off Carson's head and rubbing the tomato sauce deeper into his hair with a napkin.

"Jayden put pizza on head too," Jayden said.

"Jayden, no-no!" Jason said, switching his attention to his other son.

"My goodness! What are you going to do when you have three of them?" Marcie exclaimed.

"Never go anywhere fancier than a McDonald's that has a playland," Nicole said.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make lunch a bother for you. Would it have been better to go to McDonald's? I didn't even think! I'm so sorry!" Marcie said.

"Oh no, I didn't mean it that way. They're actually being very well behaved right now. But once we have three, we'll get a babysitter before going to a sit-down restaurant," Nicole said. "This is a great place, and it's so good to see you."

"I miss all our old friendships. We have some friends in Boston, but it seems like Ryan is the only married man in medical school. I'm glad we have our ward," Marcie said.

"It's been a great opportunity," Ryan said, "but we're looking forward to moving back to the West, even if that means California. We can't cut it as East Coast bluebloods."

"Nope, we're missing the pedigree," Marcie said. "Being a descendant of an 1847 Mormon pioneer doesn't mean a thing to people who are descendants of the 1620 pilgrims."

"Pioneers?" Jayden said, picking up on that one word. "Wagons and prophets!"

"That's right, Jayden!" Marcie gushed. "You're just the sweetest little boy on the planet, aren't you? And so smart!"

Jayden put his napkin over his head in a fit of shyness.

"Peekaboo!" Ryan said, when he took it off. Jayden laughed and put the napkin back on his head. He and Ryan played peekaboo several more times until Carson wanted a turn. Ryan played peekaboo with him too.

When their server came back to the table to ask if they wanted dessert, Jason deferred to Ryan and hoped they didn't want dessert. Jayden and Carson were both at the end of their good behavior. He was relieved when Marcie swore she couldn't possibly eat another bite, which eliminated dessert as an option for everyone. Jason insisted on picking up the check for all of them, pointing out that Ryan and Marcie were still struggling students while he had a job.

"You are a sweetheart," Marcie told Jason. "Nicole is the luckiest woman alive! Well, second luckiest, I mean. I'm the luckiest." And she gave Ryan an adoring look before remembering that Nicole had dated Ryan. "Whoops! I totally didn't mean that at all! I mean I'm glad the four of us ended up like we did. Gosh, look at me put my foot in my mouth and swallow it! Am I bright red? I feel like my face is on fire!"

"Don't worry about it," Nicole assured her as she gathered up all the little toys Carson had scattered over the table and floor. "I'm glad we ended up like we did too."

Jason paid the check, and passed out the mints their server left them. They walked out to the parking lot together, with Marcie carrying Carson while he played with her earrings. Marcie patted his tomato sauce Mohawk one more time and handed him over when they reached the Benton's recently purchased minivan.

"Thanks again for getting in touch," Nicole said. "You let us know the next time you're back in Utah, and we'll get together again."

"Or if you make it out to Boston, you let us know," Marcie said.

Nicole and Marcie hugged each other again while their husbands shook hands. Jason buckled in the boys, and they waved as Ryan and Marcie drove out of the parking lot.

Jason and Nicole got in the minivan.

"Wow," said Nicole.

"Double wow," Jason said.

"Some day, I'm going to be able to say that I made out with the man who cured autism," Nicole said.

"Nicole!" Jason shouted.

"What? You thought I dated him for six months and never kissed him?" Nicole said.

"You could have gone all day without putting that image in my head," Jason protested.

"Sorry."

"That was intimidating," Jason said.

"Yeah, I don't think I would have gotten a PhD while you went to medical school," Nicole said.

"I am fine with you not having a PhD," Jason said.

"I'm fine with you not going to medical school," Nicole said.

"Really? Because sometimes I wondered if you were disappointed."

Nicole shrugged. "I probably was for a while. But I agree with Marcie. I'm glad the four of us ended up like we did. I would have married you even if you'd never planned on medical school at all."

"Cool," said Jason.