Shattered Dreams

by Irene Spencer

  Alma neared the end of the long, divinely revealed ceremony. I knew it almost by heart, though this time it would be worded a little differently. “I now pronounce you legally and lawfully husband and wife, for time only.” It usually said, “for time and all eternity.” Helen was sealed to her dead husband, Theron. He would have her again in the next life, not Verlan. But that wasn’t much consolation to me, because I had to deal with her now.

  Alma sighed. “You may now kiss the bride.” Verlan obeyed, giving her a brief kiss. Then he pulled her close and hugged her. With Helen still partly in his embrace, he pulled me over and kissed me also. It made me feel so out of place. But I’m sure he meant it as a reward for giving him his eighth wife.

  Thank God I had Linda—the one person I could count on in this life. She walked me back to Priscilla’s house, promising me along the way she’d never marry Verlan. Never, even if she became a widow. I appreciated such loyalty. I was so proud of her.

  She read my mind. “Let it out, Irene. Cry! Just let go of your feelings. You’ll feel better.”

  I tried, but I soon realized I wasn’t going to cry. There were no tears. I knew Helen couldn’t take away something that never really belonged to me. When we got to Priscilla’s, the three of us discussed our husbands’ many weddings, laughing about how bad they once made us feel. Soon, Lane Stubbs came knocking on the door for me.

  “Verlan sent me to get you. He said to drop whatever you’re doing and come now.”

  I laughed and joked with Lane as we drove to Luz’s home. The newlyweds were supposed to leave from there for their honeymoon. “I bet Verlan realized he didn’t spend any time with me. I’m sure he wants to tell me how much he appreciates me,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess all men forget things like that. I don’t tell my three wives that I appreciate them enough, either,” he commented. I got out of his truck and walked into the house. Lane left to get Helen because Verlan wanted to talk to her, too.

  I walked down the dark hall into a bedroom, where Verlan was impatiently waiting for me. He seldom got angry, but he was hopping mad now. “Damn it, Irene, you knew!” He pointed at me accusingly. “You did this on purpose!”

  I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was talking about. I stood wide-eyed and speechless. He ranted on. “You knew, and don’t you tell me you didn’t!”

  I was completely baffled. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “What on earth are you talking about?” I sputtered.

  He grew even angrier. “You knew damn well that today is Charlotte’s anniversary. You did this to her! Just because you two don’t get along, you let me marry Helen today on purpose!”

  It was so ridiculous, I couldn’t keep from bursting into laughter. “You’re the one who proposed, Verlan. Don’t try and blame me. You’re over twenty-one. You knew what you were doing, and I didn’t do this to you on purpose, either!”

  “Irene, I’m absolutely sick about this. Now my problems have really gotten out of hand. Swear to me you’ll keep this from Charlotte, no matter what.”

  Helen’s soft knock quieted Verlan down. He shook his head, readying himself to face whatever was ahead with his new wife.

  Helen entered, surprised to see me. “Hi.” She looked at Verlan. “What’s going on?”

  “Sit down,” he ordered. “We have a little problem that needs to be discussed,” he began tactfully. Almost pleadingly, he asked, “Would you be willing to change the date of your marriage? Just move it up two days and have the tenth for your anniversary?”

  Helen’s look told both Verlan and me she wasn’t one to be pushed around. A puzzled expression came over her face. “Why?” she asked, adding stubbornly, “Today’s the eighth, and I happen to like the eighth.”

  Verlan buried his face in his strong hands. “Please, Helen. This is a matter of life or death. Just say yes; do it for me. It’s Charlotte’s anniversary today, and she’ll never forgive me if she finds out!”

  Helen shook her head disgustedly and said, “I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.” I thought it was a little late for her to be wondering that. Besides, she’d already lived polygamy when she was married to Theron. I figured she’d have been accustomed to this sort of nonsense.

  “Just do it for me,” Verlan said and sighed. “You see, I’ll have a hard enough time making Charlotte realize the necessity of marrying you without her permission, let alone marrying you without her permission on her anniversary.”

  Helen shook her head. “I don’t like it! I really don’t. But I guess if you say so.” She reluctantly agreed.

  Poor Helen. My heart went out to her. She hadn’t been married thirty minutes and already she was stomping on another wife’s rights.

  BOOK THREE

  NO MORE,

  TURNS

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I cried until my head was splitting. Repeatedly, I asked God, What did I ever do to deserve all this? Things were not going well within the Church of the Firstborn. The craziness among Verlan’s siblings spread, and Ervil actually had Joel, our prophet, murdered. Ervil, once the patriarch of the church, was removed from that position after considerable misconduct, and was exacting vengeance on the other church members. Verlan was still president of the church, so Ervil was after him, too. Verlan thought it would be a good time to colonize in some out-of-the-way place like Nicaragua, so naturally he was planning on sending me down to this unknown country to help start the process.

  I was pregnant with my thirteenth child, and my health was shot. I was told I could expect more clots in my legs and would probably die if I had another natural birth. On the other hand, if I had a cesarean section, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist letting them tie my tubes while they were in there.

  Verlan believed there were still spirits waiting in Heaven for me to be their mortal mother. He assured me that tying my tubes would be a slap in God’s face, strictly against his laws, and a recipe for going straight to Hell. Death, apparently being my only righteous option, was looking pretty sweet to me right then. No more heartache or pain or other wives to cope with. I’d have peace and finally be free.

  Verlan was in San Diego buying fruit and nut trees to be shipped to Nicaragua. His scheme was to plant orchards that would produce large enough crops to supply the needs of the new colony on a year-round basis. Moving the church into Central America would be a slow process, but going out first and starting a business that could sustain future colonizers would lay the foundation. As a general concept, it was solid enough, but Verlan was never any good at managing such enterprises. Churches and marriages, perhaps, but not businesses.

  Verlan’s other wives took turns visiting him in San Diego while he was out there searching for trees at the right price. Each time a wife went, I sent a long letter to Verlan explaining my medical predicament and apologizing for wanting the operation to tie my tubes when I had my baby. I felt it was a lifesaving necessity. Verlan felt it was a sin.

  He knew I had a deadline. The cesarean had to be performed on or before Saturday, January 20, because the only surgeon would be gone after that. All my letters were pleas for him to come be with me and bring the hundred dollars I needed to help cover the costs of the operation at the Baptist clinic.

  On Monday, Lillie returned from San Diego with a short note from Verlan. “Irene, I’m sorry I can’t come now. These trees are of great importance. I need to do something on a large scale for the future of the Saints. I promise I’ll be home Friday for sure. We’ll decide then whether or not to go through with the C-section.”

  Donna helped me scrub walls, wash windows, and clean the yard. I spent a day mending clothes and scrubbing out the dirty ones on the washboard. We also washed sheets, blankets, and rugs. I wanted everything clean and in order so life wouldn’t be so rough on Donna while I was in the hospital for a week. It was a huge responsibility for her to have to manage her ten brothers and sisters all by herself. She didn’t even have André’s help, now that he’d gone to work to help support
the family. I helped her wash buckets of wheat to be used for cereal and bread. To keep the wheat away from the incessant flies, we dried it in pillowcases pinned to the clothesline.

  Donna’s sweet and willing spirit urged me on. At seventeen, she was not only my daughter but a dear friend and anchor to her overwrought mother. I turned to her often for comfort and understanding.

  On Friday afternoon, Dr. Cano sent a message reminding me he was going on vacation and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. I could either come sometime this weekend and have him do the cesarean section, or I could find someone else to deliver the baby naturally in his absence.

  I was nauseous with uncertainty about what to do. All my life, I’d been taught obedience. My husband was to rule all my decisions. I was to accept and follow whatever choices he felt best for me. I struggled with God’s unbending rules. How could Verlan know what was best for me? How could he assess my situation without even talking to a doctor? How could he ever understand my feelings as a woman? If tying my tubes gave me my only chance to live and raise my own children, who had the right to deny me? I desperately needed Verlan’s support and approval not only to have the cesarean but to have my tubes tied at the same time. Why couldn’t he just give me his permission? Would he even keep his promise and come home to me that night?

  For years I lived on Verlan’s broken promises. I didn’t think he went around promising to do things and then simply changed his mind about doing them. I believed he basically wanted to fulfill his promises, but his responsibilities as a husband and father to so many just made it impossible. Okay, lots of times he promised me things just to keep me happy at the moment. He didn’t generally concern himself too much about whether he’d really be able to keep his promises; he just said what he needed to say and then tried his best to do what he said he would. Well, his best got less with the addition of each wife and child.

  I turned down the wick of the coal oil lamp, leaving a soft light barely lighting the room. All the kids were asleep, so I made myself comfortable on the sofa to wait for Verlan’s return. I heard a car stop outside and got up to open the door. I glanced at the clock; it was 12:30. Though it was late, I felt relieved by Verlan’s arrival. I opened the door with eager anticipation, but my heart fell when I saw it was only Charlotte.

  “Hi. Here’s a note from Verlan,” she said, handing it to me. “He’s sorry he couldn’t make it. Good night.”

  I closed the door, trembling with rage. Then I turned up the lamp and tore open the envelope. “Dear Irene, I’m too busy getting the trees. I think I’ll be at least another week. Just do the best you can. My prayers are with you for the delivery. Enclosed is $100. I love you dearly. Verlan.”

  My pitiful cries of anguish woke Donna. She tried to calm me as I repeated my conviction over and over out loud: “He doesn’t love me! He doesn’t love me! After all the wives I’ve given him, the children I’ve borne . . . he has no time for me!” I paid no attention to Donna’s words of comfort. “That man has let me down over and over again!” I cried.

  A pall of grief and indescribable despair enveloped me. My whole married life seemed to hang before me, and all at once I saw how much I gave up in order to indulge Verlan’s grand illusions. I loved, served, obeyed, complied, gave and gave and gave some more, always denying myself. Now nothing was left of me but physical and emotional wreckage. And in exchange for all of this, Verlan was too busy getting trees. My faith in Verlan was exhausted.

  Donna and Lucy accompanied me to the Good Shepherd Clinic in San Quintin the next day. Gene and Claudia, friends from our church who were also expecting, followed close behind us. Claudia was going to have her fifth cesarean. I called her in California to make sure she came before the doctor went on vacation. Having her baby in Mexico would be more within their financial means.

  Afraid I’d chicken out, I insisted the doctors perform my operation first. Lucy thought I went to the hospital to induce labor. When they wheeled me down the hall to the operating room, Donna walked beside me. She whispered words of encouragement and kissed me just before they pushed me through the swinging doors. Then she said to Lucy, “Start praying! Mom’s having the baby cesarean and getting her tubes tied.”

  Forty-five minutes later, the nurse carried an eight-and-a-half-pound baby boy wrapped in a thick receiving blanket out into the chilly hall and presented him to Donna. She and Lucy cuddled the new arrival, waiting for me to come out of the anesthetic.

  Meanwhile, in my druggy dream, I was clinging by my bare hands to a high, protruding cliff. My fingers were bleeding, and I felt myself slipping. I tried desperately to hold onto the jagged precipice. I clung tighter, but felt myself still slipping. “I can’t hang on anymore,” I screamed, plunging into oblivion. Then I woke up.

  I should’ve been happy to wake up and see the darling little boy I’d borne, but I felt like I awoke to the same old nightmare. I had to face the world again, alone. For days, every muscle in my back and shoulders twitched. Insomnia made things worse. The constant depression was snuffing out my life. Verlan came to the clinic three days after the operation to see me. He asked if we could have some privacy. Lucy and the nurse softly closed the door, leaving the two of us alone.

  “Who knows that you tied your tubes?” he began.

  “Just Lucy, Donna, Claudia, and Gene.”

  “Don’t tell another soul what you’ve done. Think how it will make me look, being president of the church. If we permitted this to go on, every woman in our group would do it. We must be examples before them and the Lord.” He shook his head in disgust. “You’ve sure goofed up your life. You’ve made it so we can never have a sexual relationship again. What you’ve done is the biggest form of birth control I know of. You shouldn’t have done it.”

  Each sentence he spoke drove me deeper into the abyss of despair. He continued, “I’ll be back on Saturday to take you home. The doctor said you’d be well enough by then. I hope that my taking you home when you get out of here will make up for the fact that I wasn’t here for Lothair’s birth.”

  Circumstances made it impossible for Verlan to keep his promise again. Gene and Claudia took me home, stopping off at Charlotte’s house to retrieve my newborn son. I thanked her for caring for him during the time I stayed at the clinic. Gene carried my baby into my house as I slowly followed them inside. He wished me the best; then he left with Claudia and her new baby for the States.

  When I entered the house, things had never seemed so bad before. I noted the cold cement floors, bare walls, sagging drapes, and seaside dampness of the January cold. I wondered how my infant son would survive in this unheated house.

  Donna helped me into my bedroom, where my brood of lonely, neglected children came scampering to get into bed beside me. I wanted to gather them into my arms and love them one and all, but instead I pushed them aside for fear they’d hit my stomach and hurt my incision.

  I felt so overwhelmed. How had I washed, cooked, and worked so steadily and hard for so many children? All my strength seemed to have drained out of me. I knew I couldn’t cope with it anymore. I looked in the mirror, but the eyes I saw weren’t mine. The eyes in the mirror were empty and hopeless.

  Eyes are the windows of your soul, a little voice taunted me while I stared.

  “What soul?” said the face in the mirror.

  Once there, in my deepest despair, I settled in for a long stay. I cried night and day for six weeks. I constantly woke Donna up at night, begging her to talk to me. My hope for a better earthly life was lost. I’d also forfeited my godhood by having my tubes tied.

  Moreover, my secret was out. Everyone seemed to know. Alma, who was now bishop of the Church of the Firstborn, counseled me to go back to the hospital and reverse my operation. “How could you do something so drastic?” he demanded. “There are spirits who are begging to come to Earth to obtain their bodies. There may still be a few you’ve covenanted to bring forth, and now you’ve denied them a chance to work out their salvation.”

&n
bsp; Because of his position, I didn’t dare refute him. But to myself, I thought, “My hell! Wasn’t thirteen kids enough?”

  Another well-meaning friend asked me if it wasn’t feasible that I’d sinned against the Holy Ghost and thereby committed an unpardonable sin.

  All the interrogating sent me into even more of a tailspin. My mind whipped me, screaming accusingly that I’d turned against the very God I tried so hard to serve. No one could have been more disappointed in me than I was in myself. I hadn’t followed Verlan’s counsel. I’d tied up the fountain of life. I’d sinned against the Holy Ghost. And if God wasn’t mad enough, Verlan made up for it.

  At not quite thirty-five, I was alone, saddled with thirteen kids, and certain I could never enjoy sexual intimacy again. I couldn’t even love God. Where was he? The only fate I could foresee when I arrived at the pearly gates was a wrathful God thrusting me into the burning pits of Hell forever. If God intended to raise his hand to destroy me, then I’d beat him to it. My only recourse seemed to be suicide.

  Incessantly, I cried to the Lord for forgiveness. But how could he forgive me for the unpardonable sin of which I’d been accused? I was emotionally incapable of caring for my children. Once more, Donna had to take on the full responsibility.

  Reluctantly, I confided in Verlan that I wanted to kill myself. He was shocked. He immediately informed me that I was possessed by evil spirits. So he instructed me to sit quietly on the bed. Then he solemnly placed his hands on my head, and by the holy priesthood he held and in the name of Jesus Christ, he cast the evil spirits out. But the demons didn’t budge.

  I felt worse than ever because I knew something Verlan didn’t. I wasn’t possessed. I was disillusioned, brokenhearted, rejected, and unloved. No exorcism would cast all that out of me. Now my husband also thought me to be filled with the Devil. There was no end to the agony.