“You ruined Lucy’s night. She feels terrible. Why would you ever treat her like that?”
I remained silent.
“I’ve got to put a stop to this kind of mischief,” he said, reprimandling me more severely than usual. “You have to learn to respect Lucy’s rights. I’m not sleeping with you for three of your nights. They’ll be given to Lucy.” He’d pulled out the big stick—the last resort for polygamous husbands desperate to keep their plural wives in check.
“That’s not fair!” I shouted. “That’s nine nights. I only threw two rocks!”
“I don’t care. I already told Lucy, and that’s how it’s going to be.” And off he went.
Verlan was sincerely shocked and disappointed that a girl like me, who’d been raised in a staunch, fourth-generation polygamous family, would behave in a manner so counter to that whole way of life. I was too angry to bother about such expectations.
I started thinking Charlotte might wish I would throw a few rocks at her house so she could get some extra nights, too. Other devilish thoughts crowded out my higher reasoning as I screamed and kicked the bed. Maybe I shouldn’t have done what I did; that was true. But if I ever did it again, I’d be sure to do it better. I’d rock that Lucy right to sleep. Forever.
ONE DAY BETWEEN THE rock-throwing incident and the birth of my third child, I was out pinning laundry on the clothesline, thinking some of my favorite thoughts—how much I hated Lucy for stealing Verlan’s attention from me and for giving him a son before I did. My delicious jealousy toward her became such second nature to me, I hardly even felt guilty about it anymore. When I realized that, I knew things had to change. It wasn’t for Verlan’s sake or Lucy’s sake or even God’s sake but for my own that I finally chose not to dwell on my resentment of her for a single minute longer. When that dark filter finally fell from my eyes, I discovered a sister wife who was gentle and compassionate and ready to be my friend. She always had been.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Due to Verlan’s hard work, the ranch was now fairly productive. (The United Order between the LeBaron brothers went by the wayside, because none of the others had Verlan’s stamina or strong work ethic.) In our fields, we grew tomatoes, beans, green chilies, alfalfa, and occasionally even cotton. With our husband’s permission, we picked tomatoes and green chilies from his field, and we were allowed to sell a few kilos to our friends and neighbors. For the first time in my marriage, I had a little spending money. Since I now had another baby very much on the way, I saved up every centavo, determined to buy a crib. I took my savings to the mercantile in El Valle and secured one on a layaway plan. I chose a blue crib, hoping for a boy this time. As soon as I possibly could, I paid off the balance and brought the crib home. In a matter of a few weeks, I also made a down payment on a dresser. Actually getting to purchase the things I needed was a new experience. I felt so blessed.
VERLAN DESPERATELY NEEDED my help to get a shipment of tomatoes off to Ciudad Juárez. The truck would arrive for the shipment in three days, so we had to rush like mad to sort and pack them. While I worked, I sat on a rough wooden crate with nothing to shield me from the hot July sun. My baby was due in a week, and my huge tummy interfered with the strenuous job I was doing. I worked with Verlan and some hired men for twelve to fourteen hours a day. Long after dark on the third day, the truck finally left with its full load.
That night, I flopped into bed, exhausted, but my aching back made sleep impossible. I turned from side to side, with no relief. Then, quite oddly I thought, the pain began to come and go. At 1 A.M., it hurt so bad, I couldn’t take it any longer. Although it wasn’t right for me to bother my husband when he was with another wife (unless it was some great emergency), I figured I felt worse than I could ever make Charlotte feel just by intruding on her rights. So I slipped on my shoes and walked the twenty feet over to her house to get Verlan.
I knocked tentatively on their bedroom window. “Verlan,” I called out.
“What’s the matter?” he asked groggily.
“Please come and help me. My back is killing me!”
I’d barely gotten back to my house when Verlan and Charlotte came in all excited. “Well, sis, be thankful,” she said. “It’ll soon be over.”
“I’m not in labor, Charlotte. It’s only a backache.”
“That’s what you think.” She put a few dry corncobs in the stove and poured some coal oil over them to start the fire. Adding a few small chips of wood, she had the water boiling in practically no time. “What do you have to tie the baby’s cord with?” she asked as she started prepping my bed.
“We’ll have to use a string out of a flour sack. There’s a clean sack in that top drawer,” I said. I figured I might as well go along with them in case they knew what they were talking about.
Charlotte pulled the string free from the sack and handed it to Verlan, with orders. “Stand back and let’s make it stronger. You twist in one direction, and I’ll twist in the other. That’s enough, now hand your end to me so we can double it, and then we’ll do it again.” The string wound together perfectly. She placed it in a saucer, pouring alcohol on it.
I asked her to get my pillowcase from the closet. It was full of white rags I’d sterilized in the oven to be used during my delivery. Then I placed a clean set of used baby clothes and a receiving blanket on the chair beside the bed.
Feeling rather silly about all these preparations, I voiced my opinion one more time. “You’re all excited over nothing. I’m sure I’ve just thrown my back out from all that work packing tomatoes. I ought to know whether I’m in labor or not. With both Leah and Donna, it was just one solid, excruciating pain that never let up.”
“No, honey, this is it,” Verlan assured me as he rushed out to get his brother, Alma. He asked Alma to drive up to Spencerville and bring Aunt Sylvia back as fast as he could. Verlan and Charlotte then did their best to comfort me, taking turns rubbing my back and joking around until the midwife arrived at 5 A.M. She proceeded to examine me.
“I apologize for all the inconvenience, Aunt Sylvia. I don’t think I’m really in labor,” I said.
“Oh, yes you are! You’re dilating alright, and this should all be over in a few hours.”
That settled it; I was in labor. More immediately, though, I was famished. I’d been too tired to eat supper. So, while Charlotte went next door to check on her three kids, I sent Verlan to the kitchen to get me something to eat. He returned with half a cantaloupe with a spoon protruding from its center. Before he could hand it to me, I bore down with a hard labor pain. From his expression, I could tell he thought I was really suffering. He started to put the cantaloupe on the nightstand out of the way, but the pain subsided, so I relaxed and said, “It’s okay, Verlan, hand it to me. I want to eat a bite before another pain comes.”
He sat down on the chair next to me, and I started to eat. When another pain hit, I quickly gave it back to him. Just then Charlotte walked in with Lucy, whom I was glad to see despite my pain, since I knew she’d feel bad if we left her out. Seeing Verlan sitting there by me with the cantaloupe in his hands, Charlotte lit into him. “I don’t believe this! How can you sit there eating while Irene’s suffering? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She and Lucy wondered why Verlan and I burst out laughing. He handed it back to me, shaking his head. “I haven’t had a bite,” he said to Charlotte. “Honestly, it’s hers.”
She turned to me. “You mean you’re actually eating during labor?”
“You know me; I’d have to be dead not to eat when I’m hungry!”
Aunt Sylvia checked me again and shook her head. “Considering how hard your pains are, you’re still not making much progress.”
I was getting exasperated. I got off the bed and paced the floor. Bending over the dresser for support, I’d brace myself for each pain. I’d rub my protruding stomach and aching back. Then I’d breathe deeply and blow the air out through pursed lips. Eventually, the unbearable pains forced me to lie down
again.
At eight o’clock, Aunt Sylvia motioned for Verlan to follow her outside for a private conference. In a few minutes, I heard Alma’s truck drive away. Naturally, I got upset, wondering what was wrong. What were they keeping from me?
When they returned, I demanded angrily, “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry,” Verlan tried calming me. “We’ve decided to send for Dr. Ramirez so you won’t have to keep suffering.”
That did it. After what happened with Leah, I wasn’t having that man look at me ever again. Hoping to force my body into compliance, I jumped off the bed, and as I did, my water broke.
Verlan and Charlotte helped me back onto the bed. Lucy held the pan of hot Lysol water for her mother to disinfect her hands. When Sylvia was finished, Lucy put the pan down and said, “Alright Irene, this is it!”
With Lucy on one side and Charlotte on the other, I grabbed their hands and bore down while Verlan urged me on. When he saw the baby’s head appearing, he said, “Come on, Irene. It’ll all come out all right.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of!” I yelled back. But in the next moment, the violent pain became too excruciating for joking. “I can’t. I can’t!” I screamed.
Verlan tried to calm me. “Irene, you’ve got to think positive.”
Hell, what did he know about it? I felt like swatting him. I gritted my teeth, looked right at him, and said, “I positively think I can’t!” But I knew it was up to me now. I pushed one more time . . . and then, thank God, it was all over.
“It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” Verlan exclaimed. “He’s born on our anniversary! Don’t ever say I didn’t give you a present.” He kissed me gratefully.
André was a darling baby. His reddish blond hair was adorable. It felt like peach fuzz.
As thrilled as Verlan was, he was a bit perturbed when Alma showed up with the doctor. He wished he’d waited a few more minutes before sending for him. All the money we had to pay Dr. Ramirez we could have used to feed the kids.
Verlan now had eight children. Charlotte’s baby, Mark, was born six weeks before André. And Lucy was pregnant again; that would soon make nine.
ONE MORNING, AROUND 3 A.M, I awoke to Verlan’s hired hand, Pancho Ponce, shouting for help. My Spanish still wasn’t too good, but I caught enough of what he said to surmise his wife, Cuca, was in labor. He kept saying excitedly, “Pronto, Irene! Ándale, pronto!” In my broken Spanish, I tried to make excuses, explaining I wasn’t qualified to deliver his wife’s baby.
I rushed him over to Lucy, who knew Spanish, so she could tell him I couldn’t do it. After they talked a moment, Lucy told me Cuca’s labor pains were already less than five minutes apart. There was no car available to rush her to Dr. Ramirez in El Valle. Pancho was begging me, as a friend, to please get into his wooden wagon right now and go with him before Cuca had the baby all by herself.
I grabbed a few clean white rags, some Lysol, and a couple of aspirin. Lucy assured me I could do it and told me not to worry about my two kids, because she would tend them. I dreaded having to leave little André, because it was almost time for him to wake up and nurse. But Lucy promised to take him over to Charlotte so she could nurse him until I returned.
The team of horses raced through the darkness. We could hear Cuca’s screams as the wagon approached their one-room adobe shack. Pancho whipped the horses harder to make them sprint right up to the door. Then he jumped out and helped me down. Offering a quick prayer, I followed him into the house.
Cuca’s suffering during delivery was pretty obvious, but nobody would ever know the turmoil I endured. What if something went wrong? Would I be blamed? I kept my composure only because I had to look every bit the part of the calm, knowledgeable midwife Cuca thought I was. I’d had an incompetent midwife myself, and it was nothing I meant to subject anyone else to (even if it was true of me at the time). Thank God, it came out all right for Cuca and me.
I was still just eighteen. This was the first of about a dozen babies I was able to help bring squalling into the world.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the time I was twenty, I knew all the religion in the world wasn’t going to transform me into celestial material. No matter how hard I worked toward perfection, all the rules about self-sacrifice and submissiveness just weren’t purifying me. I was worn out and discouraged. Though I knew I’d risk Hell for even considering it, I did the unheard of. I asked for a divorce.
Verlan was distraught. “I thought we’d made covenants to endure to the end.”
“I know, and I have! It’s just that my end comes every other weekend!”
Verlan actually wept because he feared so for my soul. Knowing my main grievance was still of a physical nature, he didn’t feel God would accept my alleged grounds for divorce.
“I’ve been good to you. I’ve been more than fair. I love you more than life itself!” he said as his tears flowed. “I feel you don’t have any room for complaints. Even if it’s true that I’ve only made love to you seven times, that’s no reason at all for you to leave me. Irene, please pray about this before you make the biggest mistake of your life. Please reconsider.”
“I’m twenty years old,” I noted. “Life is passing me by! I want to be loved. I don’t feel we’ve even had a marriage. We haven’t had time together to build up a relationship.”
He looked at me pleadingly. “You love me, Irene. I know you do. Please don’t do this to me. Please!”
“Don’t take it so hard, Verlan. I do love you, and we’ll always be friends. But can’t you understand? I’m not being fulfilled. I don’t want this kind of life anymore.”
Verlan went on a five-day spiritual fast. He drank nothing but water, hoping to receive divine guidance concerning my rebellious spirit. He figured God was just testing him, but when I demanded he take me back home to my mother, he fell apart. “Irene, this law of purity is God’s law. I never made the rules. God did. I’m just trying to do his will.”
I cut in. “Show me in black and white where God said it.”
“Well, his servants said it, and that’s the same thing. I really don’t know where I can scripturally prove it to you, but I know my father taught and lived the law.”
Living “the law” was like torture to me. It seemed to be designed for cruelty or punishment. Completely unnatural, it went beyond self-sacrifice to the point of totally rejecting self. One time each month, during the very few months I was not pregnant or nursing, Verlan and I would have sexual relations. The rest of the time, I either had to sleep next to my husband without touching him or suffer alone, believing he was having sex next door with Lucy or Charlotte. These suspicions may have been as off base as theirs were if they were having them about Verlan and me, but I was still plagued by my conjectures. I often thought I would lose my mind.
Finally, after endless arguments, Verlan began to soften just a little. We would ramp up our sex life on one condition. “I know you can’t find it, but if the scriptures allow sex for any purpose other than procreation, I’ll accept it,” he said.
I fervently searched through everything I could get my hands on. Then I found it. Parley P. Pratt, an early apostle of the Mormon Church, wrote an important book titled A Key to the Science of Theology. And lo and behold, there before my eyes was a chapter on “The Union of the Sexes.” I marveled that a servant of God would stretch his mind so far. He listed not one, but five different reasons for which God allowed sexual intimacy.
I was jubilant. I studied it carefully to be sure I’d found irrefutable proof that God was not as mean as Verlan thought he was. Ha, ha. Now, after four years, we could finally get to the bottom of things. Verlan would have to accept this. An apostle had taught it, and it would be right there in black and white before Verlan’s very eyes. I hid the book behind my back as I raced into the field where Verlan was bailing hay. “Verlan, do you believe that Parley P. Pratt was a man of God?” I began.
He nodded.
“Would you take his word on sex?
”
Verlan laughed. “I will if you just take it for what it says and not try to impose your interpretation on it.”
I confidently read to him that sex was, number 1, for mutual love and affection. “See,” I said, “that’s what I want!” Number 2, sex is for procreation. “I’ll have all the kids you want.” Number 3, sex is for times of sadness and sorrow. “That’s every other day for me!” I hesitated. I knew I didn’t have to read any further, because I’d qualified in all three of the first three departments.
“Let me see that,” he said, grabbing the book out of my hands. He read it over and over. “I’ll still have to study and pray about this.” As good as his word, Verlan spent days in the mountains fasting and praying about it.
Despite having been programmed for twenty-seven years to believe God forbids sex except to procreate, Verlan finally agreed to take a step back from his legalism. “To keep our marriage intact and to keep you happy, I’ll give in,” he said. “But don’t get too many big ideas and get carried away.”
On his next night at my house, Verlan said he still felt we were taking the lower road and possibly even offending God by giving in on this matter. He wanted it plainly understood, furthermore, that if God ever got on our case about it, I’d have to tell God it was all my fault. So, after four years of marriage and just a handful of purely procreative sexual encounters, we at last had a night of sex for its own sake—the sake of enjoyment.
IT HAD BEEN about a year since Verlan’s brother Joel proclaimed himself the long-awaited LeBaron prophet, called The One Mighty and Strong, who would initiate the great religious work in Mexico their father foretold. Alma, Ervil, and Floren accepted him as that prophet, but Verlan remained skeptical for some time. During that year, Joel went on a pilgrimage throughout the western United States, teaching that Jesus would soon return to earth and destroy America. Everyone who wanted to save himself should flee to Mexico and take up with Joel and his new church, The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times. A few families were actually showing up. The LeBaron ranch became the LeBaron colony. Its official Spanish name became Colonia LeBaron.
Shattered Dreams Page 21
