The Birth Place

Hope had some questions as to how the principle was meant to be lived in this day and age. But she understood that Faith would be much more sympathetic to the church’s beliefs than she herself would, especially after being away so long. “Sexual predators shouldn’t be tolerated in any community. Even one as tightly knit as this,” she said, sticking with a line of reasoning Faith could not refute.

“I don’t think you can call him a predator,” she said. “Rachel married him willingly enough. And he’s careful not to touch anyone who isn’t his wife.”

“Are you sure about that? What about his children?”

“I don’t think he’s hurt any of them,” Faith said, but the lack of conviction in her voice made Hope more than a little nervous.

“Have you talked to Jed about your suspicions?”

“What suspicions? I said I don’t think he’s hurt any of his children.”

“You’re worried that he might.”

Her sister didn’t answer right away.

“Faith?”

“Okay, I tried to talk to Daddy about some of the things Arvin’s said to me, but he didn’t want to hear. Arvin’s his brother and a pious church member.”

“Pious?” Hope scoffed.

“He pretends to be, especially to the other Brethren. And you know the police won’t do anything. You’ve heard Daddy say it a million times: ‘This is America. It goes against the principles on which this country was founded to persecute people for their religious beliefs. We’re just living God’s law. Are we supposed to forget what our God has told us just because man decides we should?’

Hope was willing to concede that respect for religious freedom might be a small part of the reason the police typically left polygamists alone. But she knew politics were at work, too. In 1957, the last time authorities had made any kind of concerted effort to stamp out polygamy, television stations had aired newsreels of fathers being torn from their crying wives and children, and public sentiment had quickly turned against the police and their efforts.

“The police will help if we can prove that children are being abused,” she said.

“That’s the problem. I have no proof. Just this nagging sense that something isn’t right with Arvin.”

Hope had experienced the same nagging sense eleven years ago. But it was tough to convict someone on suspicion alone.

“They love you, you know,” Faith said out of nowhere, spinning the conversation in a new direction.

“Who?” Hope said.

“Daddy. Bonner. Maybe even Arvin.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, Daddy does at least.”

“There’s no room in a heart filled with such beliefs.”

“I know he’s passionate about the church, Hope. But he’d let you come back. You just have to show him you’re willing to repent.”

Hope had already repented. She repented every day—for trusting an eighteen-year-old boy who said he loved her more than life. And for being financially unable to care for the child he’d given her. But she knew that wasn’t the kind of repenting sweet, innocent Faith was talking about. “And that embarrassment you mentioned earlier?” she said. “How could Jed forgive me for something so monumental?”

If Faith picked up on the sarcasm in Hope’s voice, she gave no indication. Her face remained as solicitous as ever. “He’d have to forgive you, Hope. The Bible says, ‘For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’

Hope knew what the Bible said. Verse after verse had been drilled into her from birth. She’d scarcely been allowed to read anything else. But she hadn’t so much as glanced at a single page in the entire eleven years she’d been gone. Because of the way the scriptures had been used—as a tool to force her into a life she didn’t want—just the sight of the black simulated-leather binding made feelings of claustrophobia well up in her. “Seventy times seventy,” she muttered.

“That’s right,” Faith said. “If you come home, the Brethren will insist that Daddy forgive you, even if he won’t do it on his own. And then you and Bonner can be together at last.”

She and Bonner…“Along with a couple of my sisters and the Widow Fields?”

“Is that so bad?”

“Maybe not to you.”

“Then marry someone else, someone who refuses to live the principle, too. Maybe someone who’s not even a member of the church. There’re people here in Superior who don’t believe in plural marriage. And there’re other towns close by. You don’t have to separate yourself from us completely.”

“I thought marrying outside the church precludes me from heaven,” Hope said just to hear her sister’s response.

“I don’t know, Hope,” Faith said. “I don’t pretend to know much about heaven anymore. If there is one, I’m having a tough time believing in it. Since I married Arvin…well, Mother would say that my faith is being tested.” She offered Hope a weak smile. “But I’m not so certain everything the church teaches is really true. If it is, why are we the only ones who believe it? Surely we’re not the only people on earth who are going to heaven. Anyway, I know this much—family is all we have in this life. And we’ve missed you. Daddy might have thirty-five children, but Mother has only five, and you’re one of them. She hasn’t been the same since you left.”

Hope couldn’t help reaching for her younger sister’s hand. They’d lost eleven years they’d never be able to recover and she regretted the pain she’d caused her mother. “Faith, I appreciate what you’re saying, I really do,” she said. “I didn’t leave here because I wanted to. But I can’t come back. If I don’t live the principle, Jed would never let me associate with you. He’s too afraid I’ll pull you and the rest of his children away from his beliefs. Besides…” Hope hesitated, unwilling to barrel on for fear she’d upset her sister.

“Besides what?” Faith prodded.

“I don’t want to come back here,” Hope admitted. “I can’t live in a place where guilt is used to motivate my every action. I can’t submit my will to a man’s, because I no longer believe women are inferior. I can’t believe our sole purpose here is to procreate, not when we have so many other talents and abilities. And I can’t believe God has so little compassion for His daughters that He would expect us to give more to our husbands than we get in return.”

Silence met this announcement. Hope felt slightly embarrassed about the passion that had rung through her voice, and knew that what she was saying would probably sound radical to her sister. But she’d spent many years agonizing over what she believed and what she didn’t, and she could hardly feel indifferent about her conclusions.

“I’m not going to say I think you’re wrong,” Faith said, “because I don’t know.”

“Then how do you do it?” Hope asked. “How do you stay here and let Arvin come to your bed?”

“I’ve been telling myself the dissatisfaction I feel is Satan tempting me away from the truth but—” she tucked her dress around her legs “—you’ve probably already guessed it’s not working. If it was, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be protecting myself from your ‘dangerous influence,’ as Daddy told us all to do after we saw you today.”

“That was generous of him,” Hope muttered. “I guess he feels a little differently about prodigals than the father in the Bible did, huh?”

“He said the prodigal in the Bible was humble and repentant.” She turned her face toward the cemetery. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it was easy for him to spurn you today.”

Hope didn’t want to debate the issue. She had almost no feelings left for her father. She’d never had many positive ones to begin with. “What does Mother say about your situation with Arvin?”

“She claims having a baby will help. But she admitted the loneliness will probably never disappear.”

“Don’t you think that’s a tragedy?”

“What?”

“To expect to be lonely your whole life, when you’re beautiful and healthy and only eighteen?”

Faith bit her lip as she seemed to consider Hope’s words. “I think she sees it as a burden we, as women, must band together and carry,” she said at last.

“Why?” Hope asked.

“For a greater reward later on, after this life.”

“You just told me you’re not sure the church’s teachings are correct. That means your sacrifice might be for nothing.”

No response.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Hope said. “There’s a whole world out there, Faith.”

“What about Mother? And my sisters? I have nieces and nephews and friends here.”

Hope noticed she didn’t mention her husband or their father.

“You can’t live your whole life for other people,” Hope said. “You have to let them make their decisions, and you have to make yours.”

“But I’m not as strong as you are, Hope. I’m not sure I can make it on my own. And sometimes what I hear in church really speaks to me, you know? Sometimes I think Daddy has to be right.”

“So did I,” Hope said. “Maybe he’s not wrong about some things. I believe it’s important to live a good life, to be honest, to serve others, to develop your talents. But is this the best place to do that? What about your baby? If it’s a girl, do you want her to have a plural marriage? To endure the emotional starvation of sharing her husband with who-knew-how-many other women. To have no hope of living without so much guilt she can hardly function?”

The moon bathed Faith’s troubled face in silver when she tilted her head to look at Hope. “Were you able to give your baby anything better?”

“I hope so.” Hope leaned her forehead against the cool metal chain above her right hand. “I have no guarantees, but at least I improved the odds.”

“So you’re okay with knowing you’ll never see your own child?”

Faith’s question was certainly blunt, even ruthless in a way, but there was no condemnation in her voice, only a sincere desire to plumb Hope’s regrets, to see how she’d lived and to know if the outside world was truly better.

“There are times I’m not okay with that at all. But I was promised she’d go to a good family, and I still trust the people who told me that.” Hope pictured the arresting face of the young administrator of The Birth Place. Parker Reynolds had been there to encourage her at a pivotal point in her life. And Lydia Kane, so alive with over sixty years of intense, passionate living, had set the supreme example of what a woman could be. Together, they’d inspired Hope to pull her life together, regardless of the obstacles in her path, and become an obstetrics nurse. But she’d had to leave Enchantment behind to do so. She couldn’t live somewhere that would forever remind her of the child she’d given away, forever tease her with the possibility that she might someday bump into her daughter.

“What are you thinking about?” Faith asked.

Hope steered her mind away from that long-ago place of adobe buildings, red sunsets, brisk clean air and pine-scented mountains. “Just that I’m glad my baby won’t have to go through what I went through,” she said. “Adoption provided her with a complete family, one that had the means to take care of her. But things are different for you, Faith. You wouldn’t have to give up your baby. You’d have a place to live, food to eat, a chance to go to school. That’s why I’m here. To help you, if you want my help.”

Uncertainty clouded her sister’s face.

“Don’t you ever dream of leaving?” Hope pressed.

“All the time,” Faith whispered.

Hope’s pulse leaped at the longing in her voice. “Then tell me what you want most out of life.”

“I want…” Her sister scuffed her toe in the dirt again. “Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Wrapping her arms around the chains of her swing, Hope leaned back to stare at the sky. “It matters, Faith. Dreams always matter. See those stars? You need to pick one and shoot right for it.”

Faith gazed up at the night sky. “The star I want is too far away.”

“Not if you really believe in it.”

“I want to feel good about myself,” her sister said softly. “And…and sometimes I dream of having a man of my own. A young man, who’ll devote his whole heart to me and our children.” She laughed in a self-deprecating manner. “I know it sounds vain and selfish, and Father would say I deserve to lose my salvation if I can’t be happy with a good, God-fearing man, regardless of his age. But I don’t love Arvin, Hope. I want to love the man whose children I’m bearing.”

Her last words were spoken so reverently they sounded almost like a prayer. “Every woman should have that right,” Hope said.

“No, those are evil thoughts, and I’m evil for thinking them.”

“They’re not evil,” Hope argued. “And neither are you.” Standing, she reached out to Faith. “Come with me. I’ll take you home and tomorrow I’ll show you a whole new world.”

Faith’s eyes went wide. “I can’t, Hope. As much as I want to—”

“Faith, you’re miserable. How long can you really expect to last? Don’t wait until you have more children. Then it’ll only be worse. You’ll feel even more trapped.”

Faith twisted the gold band on the finger of her left hand. “But I’ve made promises.”

“What about the unspoken promise of a mother to her child? Your promise to your child?”

She closed her eyes. “I hear what you’re saying, Hope. Part of me believes you’re right. I just—”

“What?”

She looked up again. “I don’t know if I can do it. It goes against everything—”

“Do it for your baby.”

“And if I regret leaving?”

“You won’t,” Hope said.

The confidence of this declaration seemed to be just what Faith needed, because she straightened as though feeling a sense of resolution. “Okay.” She stood up and took Hope’s hand. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here fast, before—”

“Before what, Faith?” a man’s voice interrupted. “Before your husband finds out?”

CHAPTER THREE

IT TOOK HOPE a moment to make out Arvin from among the long shadows of the trees. When she did, her palms grew moist.

“It’ll be okay, Faith,” she murmured, her heart pounding.

Faith looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Arvin, I—”

“You’re what?” he interrupted. “You’re planning to run out on me in the middle of the night? Is that what you’re doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Faith said. “I know it isn’t right to leave this way. But I’m not happy, Arvin. I haven’t been happy since we married. I think you know that.”

“What, you’re not satisfied with having me in your bed? You want some Gentile rutting between your legs?”

Faith jerked as though he’d shot her, and Hope stepped between them. “That’s vulgar, Arvin. Below even you.”

“Vulgar.” He chuckled. “She’s so prim and proper, no one will want her. Look at her. You think some other man is going to desire a woman who’s bearing the child of her own uncle?”

“How dare you try to belittle her for what you—”

“You might be my uncle, but you’re also my husband,” Faith said at the same time. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Hope tried to bar him from coming too close to Faith, but he stepped around her. “They’re not going to care about your version of right and wrong, Faith. They don’t understand the principle. The outside world will think you’re a freak, a freak without an education or any way to support yourself. They’ll have no use for you or our baby. Is that what you want? To be a laughingstock? To have no one?”

“She’ll have me,” Hope said.

“You stay out of this. It’s none of your affair,” he growled. “You belong here, Faith. Don’t let Hope paint pictures of dreamlands that don’t exist.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Hope said. “I’ve painted no dreamland. Arvin is the only freak I know. Let’s get out of here.” She tugged on her sister’s arm, eager to get them both away before Arvin tried to stop them physically, but Faith resisted her efforts.

“What if he’s right, Hope? What if I don’t fit in?” she asked. “I can’t expect you to take care of me and my baby indefinitely.”

“You’ll fit in just fine,” Hope said. “When the baby’s old enough, you’ll go to school and learn to support yourself and your child. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of you as long as you need me. You’ll see. Come on.”

Still, Faith hesitated. “That’s asking a lot of you, Hope, and I feel so lost already….”

“What about your poor mother?” Arvin asked, his eyes shining like obsidian in the darkness. “Are you trying to break her heart? You’ve seen what Hope’s already done to her. Now you’re going to do the same thing?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Faith said.

Hope gave Arvin a look of disgust. “Stop pretending. You’re not worried about our mother. You’re only worried about yourself.”

“Oh, yeah?” he countered, and those shiny eyes seemed to stab right through her, eliciting more of the revulsion she’d felt toward him even as a girl. “I have eleven other wives. I don’t need an eighteen-year-old girl who knows nothing about pleasing a man. Why, she’s so frigid I practically have to pry her legs apart.”

Faith gasped, and Hope raised a defensive hand as if she could ward him off. “Then let her go, Arvin,” she said. “She doesn’t love you. She never has.”

“And give you what you want? After the way you’ve treated me? Like hell!”

Hope couldn’t believe her ears. Unless she’d missed her guess, this wasn’t about Faith; he didn’t desire her, he didn’t need her, and he certainly didn’t want her. This was about the past. “See, Faith? He’s just trying to get back at me. We need to go.”

“Faith, come home with me,” Arvin said, his voice imperious. “Right now, before I feel the need to go to the rest of the Brethren and complain about your behavior.”

Hope wished she could wipe the smug expression from Arvin’s face. Obviously he thought he’d win the tug-of-war between them. She was afraid he would. But what could she do? Faith was of age and pregnant. She needed to make her own decisions.

“I said we’re going home,” he said even more forcefully.

Her sister glanced at the parking lot where Hope’s Impala waited. “I live in a house with two of your other wives,” she finally said, “who don’t seem to like you a whole lot more than I do. I don’t have a home.” With her back ramrod-straight, she turned and started toward the Impala.

Hope felt a rush of pure adrenaline and hurried after her. Faith was actually going through with it. She was leaving Arvin, Superior, the Everlasting Apostolic Church!

“You’ll be a pariah,” Arvin called after her.

“Don’t listen to him,” Hope murmured.

“I won’t let you come back here!” he shouted. “You’ve just kissed your friends and family goodbye, not to mention your eternal salvation. You’re going to rot in hell, Faith, right along with Hope!”

Hope opened her mouth to tell him he’d be there, sweating right along with them, but Faith turned and spoke before she could. “I’d rather go to hell with Hope than spend one more night with you,” she said, and got in the car.

Stunned, Hope scrambled into the other side, started the engine and peeled out of the lot.

THEY TRAVELED south without speaking, the thrumming of tires on pavement the only sound for more than an hour. Hope finally turned on the radio, hoping music might soothe the raw emotions jangling inside her and take her mind back to where it was before she’d returned to Superior. But when Faith’s gaze cut toward the radio, she quickly flipped it off. She didn’t want Faith to feel the shock of having stepped outside her sheltered existence quite so soon. Superior had regular radio stations of course, but the Everlasting Apostolic Church encouraged parishioners not to listen to the “devil’s music,” and Hope guessed Faith was one of those who obeyed.

“You can listen if you want,” Faith said politely as the quick spurt of music died.

The tone of her sister’s voice gave no indication of what Faith was feeling, which made Hope uneasy. Tears would be good at this point, she thought. But after Hope had left Superior, she hadn’t been able to cry for a year, and she saw no sign of tears on Faith’s face, either. Maybe it was a Tanner thing.

“I’m fine with having it off,” Hope said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Headlights bore down on them from the opposite direction. A truck passed, and then they were once again alone on the road. Hope peered nervously in her rearview mirror, as she’d been doing since they left, just to be sure. She certainly didn’t want Arvin, or anyone else, following her. She’d spent too long making a safe home for herself to compromise it now.

“You going to be okay?” she asked, sending her sister a worried glance.

Faith sat in the same position she’d taken when they left—legs clamped tightly together, back straight, hands folded primly on her belly. “I think so.”

Hope adjusted the heater because it was getting too warm in the car, and at last forced herself to ask the question she knew she should pose before they went any farther. “Are you having second thoughts, Faith? Do you want me to take you back?”

Her sister stared through the windshield without blinking, and Hope imagined she was watching the broken yellow line in the center of the road rush past. Each break took her farther from her home, farther from everything she’d ever known, farther from everything she’d ever believed she would do….

Finally Faith shifted her weight and eased further into the seat. “No.”

Hope sighed in relief. Don’t worry. It’ll get easier as the days and weeks pass, she wanted to say. I’ve been there. But now wasn’t the time to go into what the future would or wouldn’t hold. It was nearly one in the morning. Her sister had to be exhausted. And if Faith’s feelings were anything like Hope’s when she’d run away, she was too confused to make sense out of anything.

A few more miles and Faith’s eyelids drooped until her lashes rested on her cheeks. As her breathing evened out, Hope began to relax, too. Faith’s situation might be similar to the one she’d been in eleven years ago, but Hope silently promised that it would end differently. Faith would get to keep her baby. She’d never experience the ache Hope felt every time she thought of the infant she’d borne but was never allowed to hold. She wouldn’t have to wonder if she’d made the right decision about giving up a child she would have loved with her whole heart.

She would, however, have to lie about her baby’s father.

The words Arvin had flung at them in the park came immediately to Hope’s mind, making her cringe. You think some other man is going to desire a woman who’s bearing the child of her own uncle?…You’re a freak…They’ll have no use for you or our baby…. The bastard. He’d made her a freak. And while Faith was swallowing her distaste and submitting to him because she believed it was God’s law, Hope felt sure he was delighting in the perversion of having church-sanctioned sex with his own niece.

Highway 14 came up on her right. Hope automatically made the turn that would take her to I-15 and then on to St. George. Her glowing instrument panel indicated she was speeding again, but she was too engrossed in her thoughts to care. The genetic connection between Arvin and Faith was unfortunate, for Faith and the child’s sake. But everyone had secrets. Hope had managed to keep her own past a secret from almost everyone, except the people at The Birth Place—Lydia Kane, Parker Reynolds and the others employed there.

What was one more skeleton in an already crowded closet?

AFTER ANOTHER HOUR and a half, the adrenaline that had kept Hope alert through the entire drive ebbed, and her eyes began to burn with fatigue. When she finally turned down her quiet residential street of small brick homes, she was longing for bed and a few hours of unconsciousness before trying to help Faith face the future. Hope had insulated herself from others by focusing on becoming functional and productive—and to a certain extent, being a chameleon. She blended in. She didn’t make waves. She withheld the part of herself that knew pain. But helping Faith meant she’d have to engage emotionally, and that frightened her more than anything. What if Faith couldn’t reject the teachings of the Brethren? What if she gave up and went back? What if Faith clung so tightly to the past that even Hope could no longer escape it?