Shattered Dreams

by Irene Spencer

  Perhaps this was another of God’s signs pointing me to Verlan. If so, I’d have to obey this time. No more wavering. As I thought it over, I became increasingly certain God made this card arrive precisely on my birthday and the very day before my reckless elopement. God was giving me this one last chance to fall in line with his will.

  I immediately sat down and wrote to Nelda Young, asking her to come and get me. She was someone I could depend on, someone who could help me out of my predicament with Glen. “I’ll make it up to you,” I told her. “Love, Irene.”

  When Glen saw me later that day, he knew he’d been right to doubt me. The elopement was off. “Good hell,” he said in complete exasperation. “The Devil has beaten me again, believe it or not, by only one day!” He just stood there staring at me, shaking his head. I was so embarrassed by this newest about-face, I avoided him until Nelda came for me a couple of days later. How could I expect him to understand what I didn’t understand fully myself?

  MEANDERING THE WAY UTAH winters are wont to do, February was apathetic to the fact that I was on constant high alert for further word from Verlan and God. None came that month. There were anxious moments when I was sure time ceased to pass altogether. Otherwise, why didn’t someone contact me? Verlan and Charlotte had to know the quandary I was in. If it hadn’t been for my busy work schedule at Youngs’ ranch, I might have been tempted just to go out and bury myself under the snow, never to be heard from again. Frazzled almost beyond words, I finally got up the courage to write to Charlotte. (I didn’t feel I could be so forward as to write directly to her husband.) I basically told her I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out.

  Secretly, I decided that if it was God’s will for me to marry Verlan, Verlan would grasp the need either to let me know he loved me or to do something else that would give me some hope. If he didn’t grasp it, and soon, I’d take it as God’s release, and I’d go back and marry Glen. I thought this a very reasonable condition to put on Verlan, whether he knew about it or not. Surely God would honor it.

  I was waiting for a reply when a friend from Trout Creek unexpectedly arrived at Youngs’ ranch early in March. Leonard Parker looked grave as he delivered a somber message. “Horace’s brother, Slim, died this morning. Do ya wanna go to the funeral?”

  I most certainly did. I was dying to be back at Trout Creek. I told myself that any girl in my situation had a right to be homesick for her family. With a promise to Nelda to return to the ranch in three days, we immediately left for home.

  The closer we got, the faster my heart beat. I reminded myself that Verlan never gave me one word of hope, except for that little card, and I couldn’t even be sure he meant that as anything more than “happy birthday.” Now that we were closing in on Trout Creek, on Glen, I could have kissed Verlan for ignoring me over the previous weeks.

  When we arrived at Mother’s house, I grabbed my suitcase and got out of the car, but I lingered by Leonard’s window until he finally gave me a quizzical look. “Would you mind very much doing me another favor?” I began. “I’d be really grateful if you’d drive over to the Nielson ranch and find Glen for me. Don’t let anyone else hear you, but tell him I’m home and waiting for him.”

  With my heart pounding in my throat, I watched the cloud of dust billow behind Leonard’s car as he drove the two miles through the mesquite and sagebrush before he disappeared into the grove of trees at Nielson’s ranch. Would Glen be home? Would he be too angry to come to me after the terrible way I’d treated him?

  While I watched and fretted, I saw the beige Kaiser leave the ranch. The dust blew up faster and higher than I’d ever seen it before. His car barely came to a stop in front of me before he jumped out and took me in his arms. His kisses smothered my doubts, and his tender words of love swept them away. This was the man I really loved.

  After Slim’s funeral, Glen insisted on driving me all the way back to the Youngs’ himself. I promised him I’d give Nelda my notice immediately and have her bring me home as soon as I finished my month of work. I would see him again on the first of April. When we parted, I felt like my old, lighthearted self for the first time in months.

  March, like February, brought no correspondence from Verlan or Charlotte of any kind. This now hurt me only the tiniest bit. Mostly it was a huge relief. I dismissed them from my mind and returned home to Glen at the end of the month, just as I’d promised. As for the birthday card I’d taken as a sign from God? Discerning God’s voice was clearly an art I hadn’t quite mastered. At long last, my mind was made up. I would marry Glen.

  I settled back in at Trout Creek, and we began making new plans for our wedding. Fairly late one evening, about three weeks after my return, Glen and I were relaxing at Nielsons’, cozily holding hands on a brown leather couch, watching television. I’d just agreed to go with him the next day to take some supplies to the sheepherders on another ranch. He actually talked me into riding over there on his two motorcycles. With a satisfied smile, he got up and went into the kitchen for some refreshments.

  Just then, I heard a car circle in the yard out front. I didn’t think Glen heard it, and somehow I knew not to bring it to his attention. I just quietly got up, opened the door, and slipped out into the warm night.

  Two figures were approaching me from the dark.

  “Verlan?” I called out.

  The next moment, he was standing there beside me. My ten-year-old sister Erma had come with him to show him the way. When he reached me, he grabbed my hand. “I’m so glad we found you!” he said. “Let’s go back to your place, where we can visit. Charlotte, her mom, and your mother are all waiting there for us.”

  The moment I heard and saw Verlan, it was as if I lost all power of self-direction. He came, and I was going to have to comply with God’s law after all. God had not played along with my little condition. He blew right through my deadline and yet still meant to have his way. I felt like the crime victim who finally understands that for all her spitting and scratching and name-calling, she is going to be tied up and thrown into the van.

  I couldn’t go back in and face Glen, even just to tell him good-bye. What else would I say? “Um . . . another man just drove up into the yard, so I’ll be going now. Have a good life.” How could Glen ever forgive me or even understand?

  In a daze, I followed Verlan to his car. I was alert enough to notice he seemed truly happy to see me, but I hardly cared anymore. He hugged me before opening my car door, but he still didn’t say exactly why he’d come. When we got home, I sent Erma ahead of us into the house.

  Once we were alone, I wasted no time. “What did you come for?” I asked.

  “Well . . . uh . . . hopefully you can go back with us and . . . uh . . . stay . . . maybe . . . forever!” Not exactly the romantic approach I once hoped for, but it seemed the best that Verlan could muster.

  After all the flip-flopping my mother saw me put Glen through, and after all her threats and warnings about the LeBarons, I didn’t want her to know I was still considering Verlan as a husband. So I hurried into the house, where Aunt Rhea and Charlotte greeted me warmly. I served them tuna sandwiches and peaches as we chit-chatted until late about everything except why they had come.

  The next morning, I got up early as usual to milk our cow. Verlan met me at the corral a few minutes later, wearing a big, silly grin. “I wish you were milking my cows,” he teased. I couldn’t help but smile at his awkward attempt to be charming.

  Then I heard Glen’s motorcycle powering up the dirt road from Nielson’s ranch. I hurried back toward the house, not wanting him to catch me with the man God chose for me over him. Glen came to a stop in our yard but kept revving his engine. He eyed Verlan’s gray Chevy. As I crossed over to him, he looked toward the corral and saw Verlan.

  “Is that your damn brother-in-law?”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, thoroughly humiliated for what I was doing to him yet again.

  “Then you can go to Hell, the both of you!” he snarled. His Harl
ey almost ran me down as he shot past, trailing a spume of choking dust behind him. Utterly crushed, I watched until he was out of sight. I was terrified he thought I actually wanted this.

  When Verlan saw Glen leave, he came out of the corral and put an arm around me. “Aw, don’t feel so bad, Irene. Things will work out. Go inside now, and ask your mother permission to come with us. I don’t want to take you away from here without it. If it’s okay with her, we’ll leave tomorrow.”

  An hour later, I followed Mother down several rough cement steps leading into the cellar we’d built together two years before. I remembered how I’d helped her mix and pour those cement walls. The two dark rooms now held all our bottled fruit and other supplies—row upon row of wooden shelves crammed with cases of jams, jellies, molasses, mayonnaise, oils, vegetables, tuna, and Spam. On one of the shelves, there was even a special case of Franco-American spaghetti just for me. I sat down on a metal army cot we sometimes used for naps or when the boys came to visit.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” Mother asked somewhat wearily.

  Scared and embarrassed, I decided just to blurt it out. “Mother, I know you don’t approve, but I’m going to marry Verlan.”

  I’m sure she’d suspected this, but she started crying nonetheless. “Please, Irene, I suffered so much trying to live the Principle. Don’t do this. You’ve got a chance to have a husband of your very own. You’re already breaking Glen’s heart with this nonsense. Besides, Verlan will take you away to Mexico, where I’ll never see you again!” she finished angrily. Then she started sobbing.

  Suddenly I’d had enough of her sanctimony and duplicity. This was a woman who’d told me throughout my childhood that I had to live polygamy or else be damned. Now, just because it had been hard for her, because she failed at it, she was simply changing her mind. I don’t know quite how I managed it, but I somehow remained impervious to Mother’s supplications. I couldn’t let her tear me down. I would live the life she’d been unable to, following in the footsteps of my faithful forefathers and foremothers, who gave up everything to obey the Principle. Like them, I would just square up my shoulders and march into God’s celestial glory. I would do it by sharing my husband.

  When I’d gone into that cellar, I’d been about 90 percent sure what I was going to do. When I emerged, I was 100 percent sure. Finally, I had endured one of God’s testings. A small victory, perhaps, but it gave me hope. I thought I felt a little more like a goddess already.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On the long drive to Salt Lake City, I sat in the backseat with Aunt Rhea. At some point during the trip, she took my hand and made a grand revelation. “Irene,” she said, “the Lord has shown me in a vision that you’ll be married within eight days. I think it is so wonderful.”

  How shocked I was that God had spelled this out to Aunt Rhea, but he’d only communicated to me with cryptic winks and hand signals. All my ceaseless, futile praying for some clarity, and he chose to tell Aunt Rhea not only what would happen to me, but in how many days. Why, Verlan hadn’t even proposed to me. Among the group in the car, it seemed understood that we were driving all that way to get a priesthood authorization for my marriage to Verlan, yet all Verlan actually said to me about it was that he wanted me to milk his cows. And now here was Aunt Rhea announcing to us all that I’d be married eight days hence. I was humiliated.

  But when we arrived in Salt Lake, Verlan drove directly to my uncle Rulon Allred’s chiropractic office. This was finally a real indication Verlan was serious. Besides being my mother’s brother, Uncle Rulon was the prophet leader who later formed the fundamentalist church, the Apostolic United Brethren, which grew quickly from a few rebels to several thousand by 1953. All of us in the car were members of this group rather than the group at Short Creek, though we also supported them to an extent, and many of our loved ones belonged out there. Uncle Rulon was the successor to Joseph Musser, who was the successor to Lorin C. Wooley, who had been “called by God” to continue polygamy after the LDS Church finally banned the practice way back in 1904. So visiting Uncle Rulon was like visiting God himself.

  They decided I should stay in the car while the three of them—-Verlan, Charlotte, and Aunt Rhea—went in and talked to Uncle Rulon. This was because I was underage, and we’d come to see Uncle Rulon at his secular business, and, well, we were talking about polygamy, after all. It was my first intimate taste of the terrible and constant hiding that always was such a huge part of the practice of plural marriage. As childlike and angry as it made me feel, I compliantly stayed behind while the others went inside. Later, they told me what happened.

  In hushed tones, Verlan stated his reason for coming. My dear uncle thereafter flatly refused Verlan’s request. “No,” he said, “she’s too young to marry without her parents’ consent. I’ve already been ordered by her father and older brother not to allow the union. I simply can’t perform the marriage under these circumstances. I suggest you be patient and let the Lord work things out. Give it a couple of years.” Richard apparently got to Dad, and the two of them went to Uncle Rulon and made their case against Verlan based on the LeBarons’ mental instability as well as their supposed secret priesthood. I know now Uncle Rulon had high hopes for Verlan, even then. He thought Verlan would redeem the LeBaron name one day. But Uncle Rulon still didn’t want to be the one responsible for marrying us against my family’s wishes. In two more years, I’d be eighteen and responsible for my own choices.

  Back out in the car after this meeting, Verlan was in a quandary. Aunt Rhea had just told us that we’d be married within eight days. Now the reigning high priest and servant of God told us to wait two years. Verlan had no alternative. For the time being, he left me at Aunt Beth’s in Murray and returned with Charlotte to their home in Provo.

  I’d gotten a reprieve. The question was, what was I to make of it?

  TWO DAYS LATER, through the influence of a good friend, my Aunt Beth made arrangements for me to interview for a job at Sears. We agreed the experience would be good for me. If all went well, I’d make myself a little money and work toward becoming self-sufficient.

  While I was getting dressed for the interview, I received a most welcome phone call that distracted me in a number of ways. “Yes, Glen,” I said. “I’d be glad to meet you at one o’clock in the Sears candy department before my interview.”

  I left early, hoping to spend at least an hour with him. Along the way, of course, my inner voices started their familiar, conflicting cross fire. After listening for a while, I finally resolved that this would have to be good-bye, regardless of Glen’s intentions. Anything else, any more of the constant back and forth, would be much too painful.

  Just one glance at him undid me. We hungrily embraced, all my solemn vows to honor Verlan forgotten. Neither of us spoke of love or the future or much of anything else. I ditched my interview, and we sought refuge in a movie theater. There, in the dark, Glen and I hung on for two more blissful hours. Later he took me by the B&B Bowling Alley, where a friend of his greeted us warmly and informed Glen his “order” had been delivered. Glen followed him into the office while I waited at the counter.

  Soon I heard his soft, sad voice behind me. “Irene, these are for you to remember me by,” he said, presenting a gorgeous bouquet of yellow daffodils. In my mind, as I write this, I can still see every delicate petal point, the exquisite, buttery trumpet at the center of every blossom. All too soon, I knew, they would wither and fade away, just as Glen would. I thanked him with tears and an embrace.

  Leaving there, we walked along in silence for blocks, just holding hands. Then we stopped and waited for a bus that would take me out of his life forever. I felt I was losing my best friend, that when I did lose him, just like my fresh-cut daffodils, I would lose something life-giving. Then the bus came. As it pulled up to the curb, a knot of people began descending through the rear door. We walked slowly toward the front, allowing all the other passengers to board first while we clung to each other a minute longer.


  “Hey,” the driver shouted, “if you’re going with me, you’d better hop on.”

  We kissed once more, knowing it would have to last us forever. With a breaking heart, I boarded the bus and took a seat by the window. After a block, I could still see my beloved standing forlornly on the corner.

  A week later, while I was still very much in mourning, my cousin Evelyn burst into the bedroom we shared at my Aunt Beth’s and threw a letter on the bed that came for me in that day’s mail. The handwriting on it made my own hands shake. It was postmarked from California.

  Inside, I found a single sheet of paper. When I pulled it from the envelope, my picture and a lock of my golden hair fell from its folds onto the bed. Glen had promised to always keep these in his wallet. I didn’t have to read the letter to know what his returning them meant. Sobbing like the world had come to an end, I finally got up the courage to read. “Dear Renski, I’m in California trying to forget you. I know I never will. I want you to know one thing for sure. If things go wrong for you, now or later, I’ll always be waiting for you. Love, Glen.”

  The regrets, the grief, the tremendous sense of loss—it all washed over me at once. I couldn’t accept it. For a moment, I lost all sense of reason. I wanted to do something rash, something passionate and selfish and without any regard for God or his precepts. If Glen would only come and rescue me, we’d run far away, where we could hide from the world and just be together. Would anyone really begrudge us that?

  But God would always know where I was, and he didn’t approve of unbelievers.

  Or was there some tiny chance he might?

  UNCLE RULON, MY MOTHER, Aunt Rhea, and Aunt Beth had all been raised in a polygamist family. Their father had two wives and twenty-two children. Although the women in such fundamentalist families worked every bit as hard or harder than the men, everyone revered the men as leaders. They were the ones who held God’s priesthood. Furthermore, no one, man or woman, made any important decisions in his or her life without first consulting the presiding priesthood leader. When I was growing up in the Murray and Salt Lake City areas, I often called Uncle Rulon’s chiropractic office and asked the nurse (who happened to be one of his seven wives) if I could speak with him. I especially needed his counsel after my mother left my dad.