Shattered Dreams

by Irene Spencer

  LUZ AND DELFINA’S SUSPICIONS of me grew even faster than my expanding stomach. Why, even my swollen breasts revealed more to them than Verlan had. Tongues wagged. There were vile insinuations of adultery, which of course was a sin far worse than polygamy, even to these Catholic girls.

  Verlan wasn’t about to be scandalized, especially among his own people. So he finally had to tell them everything. Always one to put off conflict, Verlan intended to confess his polygamy when the time was just right, but my stomach beat him to it. The truth simply popped out, quite literally.

  My pregnancy caused great consternation within the family. Once their suspicions were confirmed, Luz and Delfina fought their husbands bitterly. They warned Alma and Ervil not to dare follow in Verlan’s polygamous footsteps.

  Products of a plural marriage themselves, the LeBaron brothers all believed in polygamy. In fact, their fundamentalism led them to seek religious refuge in Mexico. But Verlan was the first of them to actually practice the Principle. Until now, they’d all been busy homesteading their forsaken outpost—establishing their family kingdom in the wilderness, their version of the United Order, like the prophets of old. Plural marriage was a vital component of their plan, but it was a component not yet implemented.

  An unspoken competition raged between the brothers over who would succeed at it first. Although the youngest, Verlan had been best positioned to circulate socially while he’d attended BYU. He worked through the polygamous family network in Utah to find his second celestial bride—me.

  As it turned out, then, my becoming Verlan’s second wife really was a huge deal. Our marriage not only launched Verlan into the Principle, it launched the entire LeBaron clan into the practice. This won me animosity from everyone. While Verlan’s older brothers wanted to see the family live the higher law of celestial marriage, Alma, Ervil, and Floren preferred to get there before Verlan. They resented me for giving Verlan an edge over them. And their wives resented me for bringing home the dreaded reality of polygamy—an offense to their morality and religious scruples, but even more so to their womanhood.

  Even after my status as Verlan’s wife was discovered, the brothers’ wives still fully accepted Charlotte into their circle, continuing to treat her like a sister-in-law, but they completely shunned me. Now I truly was a stranger in a strange land.

  SOON I’D OUTGROWN all my clothes; nothing would fit. Verlan somehow managed to buy me three pieces of material in El Valle, and Charlotte helped me to cut out and sew up two maternity outfits. I liked my navy blue skirt with the tiny pink-flowered smock best. I saved it to wear to Spencerville on Sundays.

  I wore a pair of Verlan’s white knit shorts in place of my shrinking panties. As my stomach expanded, I found them, with their fly opening, so much more comfortable. I promised him I’d stop wearing them as soon as he bought me something bigger of my own.

  Verlan talked to Lucy’s mother, Sylvia Spencer, and she came to my rescue. She led me into her own cluttered bedroom, where she’d stacked several boxes of used clothing she was saving for her twelve children to use.

  I had to try hard not to look too ungrateful when she handed me a big pink pair of silky, old-fashioned bloomers. I was only seventeen; I deserved better than that. But I knew “pride goeth before a fall,” so I swallowed my pride. The ugly bloomers would stretch nicely as my tummy grew. Besides, they’d be a perfect match for my homemade, flour-sack half-slip and the even stranger looking bra I’d made from a sugar sack. After all these years and the work and miles in between, here I was wearing flour-sack clothes again.

  I clopped around in torn, worn-out shoes I left behind when I walked too fast. I was supposed to be thankful for these, too. A store in Nuevo Casas Grandes sold Alma a whole load of outdated shoes for next to nothing. He meant to supply all of us first and then make a profit selling the leftovers to the poor Mexicans up in the mountains. When I saw the weird assortment, I laughed and told Verlan, “I wouldn’t want the whole load even if you gave ’em to me! They look like the shoes my grandma used to wear. I refuse to be seen in them.”

  “Irene, be grateful,” he insisted. “These are a blessing to us. No one will see them on you except our family. Luz and Delfina are already wearing them, so don’t be so ridiculous.” It was bad enough being pregnant, let alone barefoot, so I reluctantly accepted them.

  One afternoon when I was four months pregnant, Verlan crept up behind me and pulled my body close to his. He kissed the sides of my face as he positioned his hands on my bulging tummy. “Is the baby kicking?” he asked excitedly. “Tell me when it does. I want to feel it.”

  My response came as a complete shock to both of us. “This baby will die when it’s born.” When I heard those words tumble out of my mouth, I was angry with myself for having said them. But a strange knowing went through me that I could not deny.

  Verlan pulled me even tighter, and I realized he was crying. Never had I seen him shed a single tear. I felt terrible. I never wanted to hurt anyone again, much less him. He sobbed, gasped several times, and said, “Don’t you ever say such an awful thing again.” When I felt his sorrow, I closed my mind to the awful premonition and promised never to mention it again.

  MY NAVY MATERNITY SKIRT wasn’t exactly dirty, but I decided to wash it along with the matching smock with the dainty flowers on it. As I soaked the top, gently squeezing it, all the tiny flowers faded and then dissolved completely in the water. I was dismayed. My pretty smock was now a dingy gray. I had to rub around the collar and beneath the sleeves to remove the few forlorn little flowers that remained. Then, as soon as the dark blue skirt hit the water, the water turned to ink. I rinsed it quickly in clear water and wrung it out, but my heart grew sick when I flattened the skirt to hang it on the rope clothesline. It was streaked with dingy blue and gray lines, like something poorly tie-dyed. My new outfit was ruined. The only other dress I could fit into looked even worse, since I’d worn it every day herding cows, making cheese, baking bread, and canning fruit. Now my nice Sunday skirt and smock looked nearly as bad.

  My first trip to the doctor was to be the following day, and I had nothing to wear. Verlan insisted that I iron my ruined skirt and smock. When Charlotte saw me, she offered to let me find something of hers to wear, but I’d gained so much weight that nothing she had would fit me. The skirt and smock would have to do.

  This was going to be my first trip to the city since arriving in Mexico. Nuevo Casas Grandes, or Casas as we called it, was only forty miles away, but I had never been there. Alma offered us a ride over so we could save the bus fare, but we’d have to hitchhike home because he’d be going on to the mountains to sell his horrid shoes.

  As I prepared to leave for town, my dignity was still very much in question. I knew I had to have a medical checkup in order to see that the baby was in the proper position, and I’d meant to go to the doctor looking nice in my new outfit, rather than looking like a poor pregnant peasant. Yet here I was in ruined clothes and old, ugly grandma shoes. I wiped the caked mud off them, hoping I would remember not to cross my legs and reveal the big holes in the soles. I’d put pieces of cardboard inside them so the rocks wouldn’t bruise my feet.

  I’d never been to a doctor before. One reason was I’d always been healthy. Besides that, pligs didn’t go to doctors unless something was serious. I had no idea what I was in for. I thanked God the doctor would be Mexican so I wouldn’t be able to understand him. While he examined me, he could talk to Verlan, and that might keep his attention off me just a little.

  “What if I don’t go, Verlan?” I asked in a desperate attempt to get out of it.

  “You have to. We’re having the baby at home, remember? Aunt Sylvia said she’d deliver it only on the condition that it’s down in the right position so it’ll be born headfirst. She already lost one that came breach. She doesn’t want to take any chances.”

  “I’ll die if I have to go there looking like this.”

  “Well, the baby may die if you don’t,” he counter
ed angrily.

  Verlan almost dragged me into the Dodge pickup, where he sat by Alma, and I sat by the window. Frightening mental images fluttered through my mind. I’d heard, for example, that doctors in the States actually looked at your . . . well, you know. Horrors! I hoped these Mexican doctors were different. If he felt my tummy and that was all, I could stand that. But I thought I’d die if he saw my homemade underclothes. The red and blue letters, F-L-O-U-R, hadn’t completely washed out of my half-slip because we couldn’t afford bleach. My mind raced ahead almost as fast as the truck. Would the doctor see I had a homemade bra, too? I couldn’t interrupt Verlan with my silly fears. If I did, Alma would hear, so I turned to God. Whatever you do, God, please don’t let this foreigner see these old-fashioned, hand-me-down pink bloomers!

  It took us forever to get there on that old, bumpy dirt road. Finally, in the distance, I saw the “big city” of Casas. Boy, did these LeBarons stretch things! It wasn’t a city; it was more like one of the small western towns I’d seen in the movies. There was a railroad and railroad station, the Hotel California, a little church, the bank, and a dry goods store called El Madrigal de la Luz. I saw improvised stalls where Mexican vendors were selling straw hats, leather belts, sarapes, and fruit. A few other old-fashioned buildings lined the sides of the main road, and a splattering of adobe houses completed the town. That was it.

  Alma let us out at the town park. Verlan held my hand as we crossed the narrow street. Then he showed me the stairs at the back of the bank that led up to the doctor’s office. “I want you to go up alone,” he said. “This is Dr. Hatch’s office. He’s a Mormon, and he’s the finest doctor in town. Even better, he speaks English. I’m sending you to him because you deserve the best.”

  I was appalled. “I’m not going up there without you,” I protested. “Certainly not looking like this!”

  Verlan merely folded twenty pesos into my hand and gently pushed me onto the first step. “Go on, Irene. Go on up.”

  I stood there, speechless. Then I collected my thoughts for one last-ditch effort to escape my fate. “Your family only found out about me three months ago,” I said. “Are you now prepared to tell the Mormons?”

  “Heavens, no!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Don’t you dare tell him who you’re married to! I’ll be excommunicated from the Mormon Church if you do.” Contrary to my experience as a child in Utah, Verlan grew up within the LDS Church in Mexico, and he still had many Mormon friends. In his usual fashion, he wanted to delay as long as possible their discovering that he’d chosen to live according to his fundamentalist heritage and training.

  “What will I tell him?”

  “Just go up there and say you’re Irene Kunz. Make sure you don’t mention me.”

  Seeing that I wasn’t going to get out of this, I took a long, deep breath, sent one last silent prayer up to God, and climbed the stairs, trembling and alone.

  Dr. Hatch was a pleasant, ruddy-faced man of about thirty-five. He offered me a chair, and I sat down in front of his desk, thanking God this put my skirt and shoes out of his line of vision.

  “You’re new around here, aren’t you?” he asked as he took a new file out of his bottom desk drawer. Before I could answer, he continued, “Well, we’ll just get a little information on you first. Your name?”

  “Irene Kunz,” I answered quickly, hoping he wouldn’t probe much further.

  He wrote it down, paused, and looked me straight in the eye. “It is LeBaron, isn’t it?”

  I froze. Verlan’s own family had barely found out. How could word have traveled so fast? He interrupted my thoughts. “It is LeBaron, isn’t it?”

  “Uh . . . er . . . yes,” I admitted. “But I don’t go by that name.”

  “Now that we’ve got that cleared up,” the doctor said, “what can I do for you?”

  “I want to make sure my baby is in the right position because I want to have it at home.”

  “How far along are you?” he asked.

  I kept my eyes on the floor. “A little over seven months. I think.”

  “Well, just slip off your bloomers and lie down on the table.” Heavens, did he have X-ray vision? But then he added, “Oh, I guess they don’t call them bloomers anymore. They’re called panties, aren’t they?” He turned his back to give me a few moments of privacy.

  I had to pull the faded, tight-fitting skirt up over my hips and swollen belly to remove my—he’d been exactly right—bloomers. I quickly folded them and hid them under the wooden chair. I eased up onto the table, covering myself up with the sheet he’d given me.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I knew I’d never be ready, so I lied. “I guess so,” I said.

  Dr. Hatch turned around and walked toward me with a rubber glove on his right hand. With his free hand, he pulled up some metal stirrups from the sides of the table, guiding each of my shoes into one of them. “Slide your buttocks down to the end of the table,” he commanded.

  I was dying a thousand deaths. He could see not only my flour-sack slip and my ragged soles but my whole rear end as well. I turned scarlet. Why, even Verlan hadn’t seen this much of me, let alone some stranger.

  The kindly doctor tried to ease my nerves. “Don’t be so embarrassed,” he said. “I have so many people come in here, I don’t even notice whether they’re men or women.” But I didn’t believe him.

  His gloved hand suddenly probed painfully deep inside me. As he explored, moving his fingers here and there, I grew increasingly mortified. I wondered if this was somehow violating God’s sexual code.

  Removing his hand from me and the glove from his hand, he said, “The baby is in perfect position.” After that, he walked over to the window and peered down on the park below. “Take your time getting dressed, young lady. I’ll give you a minute.”

  It only took me a few seconds. “I’m dressed,” I said, still embarrassed.

  “Oh, there’s one more thing. Sit back up here on the table. I need to check something else before you go.” He instructed me to undo the two top buttons of my faded smock.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I wanted to say. I held the smock tightly to my throat.

  “It’s okay,” he said patiently, “I just want to see how your nipples are. You do plan on breast-feeding, don’t you?”

  Continuing to guard my breasts with a trembling hand, I insisted my nipples were okay. He gently but firmly moved my hand and unbuttoned the blouse himself. I fought back tears as he pulled my large, swollen breasts from the homemade bra. Now he’d seen it all.

  My ordeal was finally over. “How much do I owe you?” I asked, a bit steadier now that my pathetic underclothes were finally back under my other sad garments.

  “Usually, I charge ten pesos. That’s eighty cents. But I see you need it worse than I do, so this time it’s on me.”

  One final humiliation. “Thanks,” I muttered, bolting out the door as the tears began streaming down my red cheeks. I was going so fast and was so blinded by my misery, I came close to stumbling on the flight of stairs.

  Verlan was waiting for me nervously. Always sensitive to the plight of others, he grabbed me when he saw my tears and said, “Don’t cry right here, Irene. All these people are looking. They’ll wonder what I’ve done to you. Please,” he begged.

  “Well, get me out of here,” I sobbed.

  We walked side by side for about a half block and entered a small restaurant, taking a seat at a table in the back, away from the other customers. Then he said to me, “Irene, please don’t take this so hard. Let’s get happy. I’ll buy you anything you want.”

  I hadn’t tasted meat for ten months, so I said, “I want a big, thick, juicy steak.” Suddenly I was famished.

  He rattled off something in Spanish to the waitress. I understood none of it except her response, and that was easy because she simply shook her head and said no.

  Verlan laughed. “I guess it’s just not your day. They don’t have steak.” He ordered his favorite dish for both
of us—cheese enchiladas. He didn’t have to ask what soda I preferred, since I’d been begging him for it for almost a year. The waitress returned with two ice-cold Cokes. We ate our enchiladas leisurely. I savored each bite, finding the fried egg on top a special treat.

  We held hands across the table while Verlan knocked my ugly shoes playfully with his worn ones, and said, “I’m so sorry for what happened at the doctor’s office and that you didn’t have anything nice to wear. I’m sure Dr. Hatch didn’t mean to embarrass you. You’re so beautiful to me, I’d love you even if you wore a gunnysack.”

  My condition made him more sensitive. I was so starved for his love that this sweetness went straight to my heart. Maybe God did have a better future planned for his faithful servants, after all. I resolved to go home and try harder to be happy.

  “God loves you, Irene. The worst is over,” Verlan said tenderly. How I hoped it was true.

  After lunch, we sat in the pleasant little park, watching people and eating Popsicles in the shade. Verlan didn’t rush me because this was “my” trip to the city. Eventually, we had to think about hitchhiking back home. It was too far for me to walk to the edge of town, where the main road came through, so Verlan woke up the town’s only cab driver to take us that far in his dilapidated vehicle. Then we waited for an hour in the broiling sun until a large blue truck stopped for us. It was loaded to the top of the side racks with hundreds of cases of soda pop. Verlan asked if we could have a ride. The driver and his assistant smiled and nodded their heads. Verlan told me to get up front, and he climbed on top of the cargo, sitting near the cab.

  I felt uneasy riding between the two young Mexicans, not knowing what they were saying to each other. As the truck bounced over the dirt road, the tires fell into every rut, sending us swaying and jerking so much, I was afraid we’d tip over. The heat was stifling, and I could barely breathe through all the dust.

  Before long I was feeling terrible. I held my aching stomach and wondered if my pains might be premature labor. But they grew more intense as we jolted back and forth. Both men watched helplessly as I clung to my rumbling, swollen belly, the pains growing worse and worse. I desperately needed out of the truck. But I couldn’t make them understand it wasn’t labor I was groaning about. I was having an attack of diarrhea. “My God,” I said to no one in particular, “I’ve got Montezuma’s Revenge!”