The Bishop's Wife

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  Kurt came up behind me and put his arms around me. He leaned close and I could feel his breath in my ear.

  “Happy memories?” he asked.

  I was a little choked up. I nodded rather than trying to speak.

  “I was a lucky man then. I am an even luckier man now.”

  “I frustrate you to no end sometimes,” I said. “And I have as loud a mouth as ever I did.”

  “I frustrate you, too,” said Kurt. “And as for your mouth.” He slid his arms around me, then kissed me gently. “I have always loved your mouth, open or closed, full of words, full of love, or full of sharp barbs. I love it all. I love all of you.” We held hands for a little while, until he was called away.

  I stayed through the end of the reception, and after the couple had gone, I helped Cheri clean up in the cultural hall, the halls around the church, and finally in the kitchen.

  “Their car was kept safe?” I asked. That was one tradition I had never approved of.

  “My husband had it in the garage. He came and brought it to them, so no one could cover it in slime.”

  “Good for him,” I said. He was helping sweep the polished wooden floors of the gym.

  I stared at the place and thought how strange it was that we could repurpose the same room for so many different things. This cultural hall would see everything in the course of its life. Funeral luncheons, weddings, basketball games, monthly Relief Society meetings, a Road Show or Stake Pageant, music practices, Sunday School, Young Men’s and Young Women’s activities, Boy Scout meetings, and the overflow from sacrament meetings and stake conferences.

  In many ways, this hall was the most Mormon place of them all. Didn’t that make it holy in its own way? Maybe more holy than the quiet, white temple that was not part of our weekly worship?

  This hall was where God came, if you believed in God.

  And I did. After all this time and all my doubts, I did.

  CHAPTER 3

  Kurt went to church two hours early on Sundays, at six thirty. We shared our building with two other wards in the same neighborhood, and since we had the nine o’clock schedule this year—instead of the more envied eleven o’clock schedule or the nap-stealing one o’clock schedule—that meant his meetings with our other ward leaders were mighty early. He sometimes tried to get home for fifteen minutes before church started so he could spend time with the family and get some food.

  I had started making breakfast when he called. I sighed, knowing the fact that he was calling meant he wouldn’t make it home before church this week. It was likely he wouldn’t be done meeting with members and giving callings until late afternoon. And he would have to go back in the evening for a fireside or other activity.

  “Brother Rhodes called to ask me to talk to him,” he said.

  Brother Rhodes wasn’t an “official” member because he lived outside the ward boundaries. He had argued with his own bishop and thus had come to our ward as a kind of rogue member.

  I made a small sound—not quite a groan. “You know he isn’t your problem,” I said.

  “He feels like my problem,” said Kurt.

  “At some point, someone needs to tell him to go back to his own ward and mend fences.”

  “I tell him that every time he talks to me,” said Kurt. “But he has some genuine grievances. You know he does.”

  Brother Rhodes was a stickler for historical fact. This did not always go over well in gospel doctrine classes, which were designed to give people a warm feeling about the church, and perhaps a bit of a kick in the pants to work harder and stop criticizing so much. But Brother Rhodes had a PhD in history and he could not bear inaccuracy. When polygamy came up, he had to explain every date in detail, every bad story about Joseph Smith that had been told, and what he thought was likely or unlikely about it. A number of ward members found these kinds of frank discussions about the founder and greatest prophet of Mormonism unsettling.

  “I hope you take notes,” I said. “I want to hear all the details of what we’re doing wrong.”

  “I’ll do my best to remember, but I don’t want him to think that I’m taking notes for use in a church trial. You know he is paranoid about that.”

  “Ah, well,” I said. A church trial is convened if membership privileges are at stake. It doesn’t necessarily end in excommunication, but it is the church’s only way to discipline its members.

  I called Samuel downstairs, and he and I talked while we ate. Samuel wasn’t in gospel doctrine class, which is for adults, but he knew Brother Rhodes from his testimonies. Testimony meeting came once a month. It could be dangerous, and Kurt had to sit on the edge of his seat, ready to interrupt if someone went too far astray.

  “Is he going off on the Mountain Meadows Massacre again?” asked Samuel.

  “No,” I said.

  “Must be polygamy, then,” said Samuel.

  “You know, we should all thank Brother Rhodes. He works as a wonderful inoculation against anything anti-Mormons might say about the church. No literature you read on your mission will compare to the real facts as he offers them, completely unvarnished.”

  “Yeah, but I think a lot of people just turn a blind eye to the problems in the church.”

  Samuel might get flak in church for expressing these views, but at home I didn’t mind questions. I believe strongly that God wants us to learn and make our own decisions about our lives.

  “Turning a blind eye can be dangerous,” I said. I was thinking of Carrie and Jared Helm. It had been three days since Jared showed up on the doorstep, and so far, we’d learned nothing more about where Carrie had gone. Jared had taken several days off work, but how long that could continue, I didn’t know. He would have to find at least part-time care for Kelly, who was only in half-day kindergarten.

  “You know, Mom, I worried a little bit when Dad was called as bishop.”

  “I worried, too,” I said.

  “No, I worried about you. I thought you might go to another ward or something like Brother Rhodes.” Samuel played with the curl over his left ear. He had lighter brown hair than Kurt and my other boys, but in every other way looked like his father’s son. The same height—six foot—and the same rugged build with wide shoulders and chest. The same narrow, long face and thick nose. But in other ways, I knew he was mine.

  “I don’t have a problem with your father as bishop, you know,” I said. None of the other boys would have said something like this, and even if it made me a little uncomfortable, I didn’t want to cut him off. “I would have thought you saw enough of our relationship to know I would support him in whatever he did.”

  “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to put him in a position where he had to tell you that you were wrong publicly.”

  “You mean, unlike all of the times when he has already done that?” I asked, smiling, thinking about how we had argued in front of the kids over politics. Kurt had voted for both Bushes. I had voted for Clinton and Obama and even for John Kerry. And at one point, Kurt had tried to tell me that my cooking wasn’t good for his cholesterol, which I hadn’t appreciated at all.

  “It would be different with him as the bishop,” said Samuel. “If he had to tell you that you were wrong in front of the whole ward.”

  “Ah,” I said. I hadn’t thought about that from Samuel’s angle, but I could see now why he had worried. “Most people think I’m fairly conservative,” I said. I didn’t talk politics at church because I thought that was rude, and since I attended church and generally supported church activities, ward members probably thought I believed the same things they did.

  Samuel rolled his eyes. “Most people are idiots,” he said. Which was a direct quote from me, I think.

  “I try not to make waves,” I said.

  “And you do a good job of it. It lets you see things that Dad doesn’t. You understand people in so many ways. You don’t judge them.”

  It was an unexpected compliment, the kind of thing you don’t get often from a son, or from any ch
ild. I teared up a little, and then Samuel got embarrassed, and I knew that was the end of this conversation. Samuel might be more empathic than my other sons or than Kurt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a teenage male.

  “Well,” I said.

  He stood up and put his dishes in the dishwasher, not the sink, then went to get his scriptures and his tie.

  I helped him with his tie, not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of doing it himself. I liked to remind him that I was still in his life, still watching out for him, even if he was nearly grown up.

  We walked to church together, since it was only three blocks away. Then he went off to his priesthood classes, and I went to Relief Society.

  The lesson was on the priesthood, the power and authority from God that was bestowed on men of the right age and worthiness. It was not my favorite topic. If only Brother Rhodes ever came to Relief Society. I was sure he had lists of women who had been ordained to various offices of the priesthood in the old days of the church, or women who hadn’t been ordained but had nonetheless called on the priesthood power from God to give blessings of healing, even using the holy, consecrated oils that their husbands had left behind.

  But since Brother Rhodes wasn’t here and I was biting my tongue as bishop’s wife, I looked out over the women in the room and wondered how many of them were dealing with problems no one knew anything about. How many of the women were being abused? How many were having affairs? How many of them didn’t know if they would have enough money to make a house payment next week or to buy medications they needed?

  Midway through the lesson, I got up and went into the bathroom. I took my time about it, too, hoping the poor teacher hadn’t been offended by my abrupt departure. It was while I was washing my hands that I saw Gwen Ferris step into the bathroom and slip into the first stall. She was red-faced and I could hear her breathing heavily through the stall door.

  I turned off the water and got a paper towel for my hands. Then I sat there in the nursing mothers’ chair, wiping at them for a long time to avoid going back to class.

  Gwen came out of the stall and started washing her hands. She had thin, faintly curly dark hair and a perfectly heart-shaped face that made her pale, large eyes stand out even without makeup. She looked up at her reflection and seemed to consider the puffiness around her eyes. She turned to get a paper towel and then she saw me.

  Her eyes immediately fell. “Excuse me,” she said. She pulled off a towel, dipped it in the cold water, and pressed it onto her eyes. After a moment, she looked back at herself, and then at me.

  “Am I in your way?” she asked, and stepped back from the sink.

  I stood up and threw the ripped and worn paper towel away. “Not at all,” I said. “I just wondered—if there was anything I could do to help. You seem upset. Was it something in the lesson?”

  “I’m fine,” said Gwen. She still hadn’t met my eyes.

  “Is it about women and the priesthood?” I asked. “Because—” I don’t know what I was going to say, but Gwen interrupted me.

  “No, not that. It’s—everyone always talking about how it’s a woman’s true calling to be a mother. About how children are such a blessing. And that’s just—some days it really gets to me.”

  I stared at her, cut at the reminder. Fertility problems can be very painful in a church that still believes in the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth and still promotes the idea that a woman’s place is in the home. Gwen had a good job and she was moving up the corporate ladder, as far as I knew. Until now, I had assumed that was what she wanted.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Gwen finally looked me in the eye. “It’s not your fault.”

  I put an arm around her and felt rather awkward patting her nearly skeletal form.

  “Thank you,” she said afterward. The bell had rung, and soon there were going to be Primary children in here, with their curious eyes and ears.

  “You can talk to me anytime,” I said. “I don’t mind.”

  “You must be so busy,” she said.

  “Maybe we were meant to see each other in here,” I said. “Maybe you have as much to teach me as I have to teach you.”

  She ducked her head, and I couldn’t tell if that meant she would talk to me again or not.

  I had done what I could, I tried to tell myself.

  Of course there was no way Jared Helm could know about the conversation I had had with Gwen Ferris, but as if to rub salt in the wound, he raised his hand in Sunday School to answer a question about Adam and Eve. His voice shaking, he talked about the importance of eternal marriage and having children.

  “There is no reason to put off having children, not for financial reasons or for emotional ones. God will bless you if you follow His commandments. We need to rely on Him more to support us through whatever difficulties may come as we obey His every word,” he said.

  I looked back and saw Gwen Ferris get up again and leave the room, her husband looking after her, but not following.

  I stayed where I was and made a note to talk to Kurt about the Ferrises.

  It was Fast Sunday, a monthly Mormon tradition of going without food for twenty-four hours (or less for younger people and pregnant women) and then giving the money saved from not eating to the poor. It is also thought to be a way to gain spiritual closeness to God through denying the body and seeking spiritual strength instead. The fasting ends with a group meeting where people share their experiences either about the fasting or other things that happened during the month. People simply stand to give testimony as “moved on by the Spirit.” Though occasionally bishops have to step in and ask people to sit down, or are prompted to remind members of the guidelines that testimonies are to be largely focused on Christ.

  Brother Rhodes got up to bear his testimony after a few other speakers. He tended to be long-winded, and I didn’t know if I was glad about that or not. Sometimes, instead of Brother Rhodes we have a line of small children whose “testimonies” are whispered into their ears by older children. I disapprove of this practice, and there are times when church leaders send letters out to wards also discouraging it, but it never seems to stop for long. Parents are too enthused about the cuteness of young children on the stand, their testimony “as pure as the angels.”

  Finally, Brother Rhodes sat down, and I thought that would be the end of today’s fast and testimony meeting. But little Kelly Helm leaped out of her seat and streaked to the front of the chapel before Kurt could close the meeting and announce the final song and prayer.

  She grabbed the stool that was off to the side and jumped onto it. I stared at Kurt, wondering if he was afraid she would say something about her mother leaving, announcing private information to the whole ward. But how long was it going to stay private?

  I tensed as she began to speak. It was an ordinary child’s testimony, full of thanks for her many blessings, her food and her house, to be a member of the church, and to have the Book of Mormon. Then she got to her family. “I’m thankful for my daddy and my grandpa. And I’m thankful that my mommy is my mommy forever and that she will love me forever and that God will make us be together forever. Amen.”

  I muttered an “Amen,” not sure if that was agreement or simply relief that Kelly was on her way back to her father’s place in the congregation.

  Kurt closed the meeting and we sang “God Be with You Till We Meet Again.”

  CHAPTER 4

  On Monday morning when he went into his accounting office, Kurt put a note up on the fridge. It said Anna Torstensen.

  I knew what it meant. He was worried about Anna Torstensen, possibly because of thoughts that had come to him during prayer the night before, possibly because of something mentioned in all the church meetings he had gone to on Sunday. He wasn’t allowed to tell me why, and he was at work all day today, but he was hoping I might have a chance to go see her.

  Sometimes weeks went by without a note left on the fridge and sometimes there were several names all at once. I
didn’t always have time to see to everyone the day the name went on the fridge, but I did my best. I knew that Tobias Torstensen was ill, and that at his age, any illness was something to take very seriously. Other than that, I wasn’t sure what Kurt thought Anna might need.

  I did the dishes from Sunday evening (I always wish in the mornings that I was one of those women who couldn’t go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink—but of course, the night before, I am always glad I am one of those women who can go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink). After that, I took a shower. I was tempted to go out walking first, but I didn’t want to keep putting off something Kurt had thought was important.

  I made up a quick batch of cinnamon rolls. After they had baked, I left one pan cooling on the stove, then covered the other in aluminum foil to take with me. As I stepped outside, I glanced at the Helm house just below our hill. The yard was still covered in snow, but Kelly and Jared were out playing on a sled. Jared was dragging Kelly along with a rope around his chest. Apparently she was in afternoon kindergarten.

  I waved as I walked by. Up the street, the Torstensens had a large lawn that in summer was beautifully kept. Even now, in winter, three bushes with red berries on them decorated the edges of the yard. Seeing them made me shake my head at our rather dull yard. I could blame it on Kurt’s being too busy these days to devote himself to yard work—not that I was willing to give up my books or cooking to pull weeds, either. But even before Kurt was called as bishop, he had preferred to spend his Saturdays with the boys, playing football in the backyard or working on Boy Scout projects. All five of my sons were Eagle Scouts, and I was proud of that, not just for their sakes, but for mine and Kurt’s. We’d done plenty of work to earn those badges, too.

  I went up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  “Sister Wallheim, good of you to come by.” Anna Torstensen was tall and fit with thick, bluntly cut dark hair. She was one of the few women in the ward who had a graduate degree, and she had worked full time as a banker before she had married Tobias Torstensen. They had never had children of their own together and I didn’t know if that had been a choice or not. But Anna had helped Tobias raise his two sons from his first marriage.