The Bishop's Wife (35 page)

I knew that place. Sometimes I was still in that lonely place
where nothing made sense except in the most obvious way. It was hard to see anything luminous in the everyday world of pain and purpose. “Well, for purely selfish reasons, I'm glad you're moving back closer to me,” I said.

Anna laughed. “That's why you're the bishop's wife, isn't it? You make us all feel welcome, no matter what our problems are.”

If that was true, she had just offered me the best compliment of my life. Being welcome was a good feeling, and definitely one to share.

All that night, I stewed about how to approach Alex Helm. After my experience with the Westons, I told myself that maybe he wasn't so bad. Maybe no parents were really as good as I imagined they were. Maybe Kurt and I were only just beginning to see our own flaws as parents as our children grew up and started becoming parents themselves. I had always thought I was teaching my children what was right, and not what was a “foolish tradition of their fathers,” to use Book of Mormon lingo. But it was almost impossible to tell the difference. Just because I thought the Westons and the Helms were broken in terrible ways didn't mean that I was better, or that God couldn't love them as they were.

I wished I hadn't reacted so impulsively the last time I saw Alex Helm. I'd been able to act calmer around the Westons; I didn't think they had noticed that I left their house with a bad taste in my mouth. What was it about Alex Helm that brought out the worst in me? And what was it about the Westons that had made me so determined in the first place to be on their side? I wasn't sure I liked looking at that reality. Was it because the Westons were rich and I had been reacting to a mantle of privilege? Was Alex Helm more open about his flaws? I'd always taught the boys that honesty was more important than how you looked, but was it true?

When Kurt kissed me awake in the morning, I'd managed a total of twenty minutes of sleep. “You're thinking about Alex Helm, aren't you?” he said.

I nodded. He wasn't the only one, but he was top of the list.

“You just need to see how to find the man behind the monster. You're usually so good at that,” asked Kurt.

Kurt left for work, which was still crazy with people who had filed extensions now needing to figure out their taxes. Soon after, Samuel came downstairs to get ready for school. He still hadn't talked to Kurt about the question of when he would go on his mission and if he should apply for a deferral from his first year of college. In fact, Samuel was avoiding his father as much as Kenneth had done for a couple of years now, and that wasn't a good thing. Kurt hadn't noticed yet. He was too busy. He would, though. I trusted that.

With Kenneth, Kurt had simply let it go, thinking that eventually Kenneth would work out his post-mission problems. Plenty of missionaries had difficulty returning to normal life. It should have been a relief to return to life without the pressure to convert others, but for some, it was a letdown and they began to question everything that had gone before. I'd thought at the time that was what Kenneth had been struggling with. Now I was sure it wasn't.

When Samuel was out of the house, either on a mission or at college, what was my life going to be like? What about when Kurt was released as bishop? I had fantasized about going to see church history sites in Nauvoo, Kirtland, and Palmyra, which we'd never had a chance to go to with all the boys. Or even Europe—Paris and the Eiffel Tower or the remains of the Berlin Wall in Germany. We had the money to do almost anything we wanted. But would that be enough for me? Would I feel happy in a life that wasn't about filling someone else's needs?

But for now, there was plenty of work to do for others. For instance, the laundry pile had become enormous, and I worked through that as I turned on the television news to discover that the
police had found the man Carrie Helm had “met” an hour before her death at a hotel on the Nevada side of the border. He had told the police that she had been alive when he left her, though she had said something about being afraid of what would happen next in her life.

It seemed no one would ever find out what had happened to Carrie Helm. Each lead the police followed led them to a dead end. Unless the police had only let this man go temporarily, and were waiting for him to prove his guilt by fleeing? I knew it wasn't likely, but I had to cling to anything at this point.

The doorbell rang late that morning. I opened it and found Gwen Ferris waiting, staring at the ground.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Come in.” I pulled her inside to the front room, but she was jumpy. The sound of the dryer beeping upstairs to alert me it was finished made her jump two feet.

“Is anyone else here?” she asked. She was wearing elaborate makeup, but with it yoga pants and a worn T-shirt.

“Kurt's at work and Samuel is at school,” I said.

Gwen relaxed a little and nodded. Clearly she did not want to talk to Kurt. It was one of the tricky things in the church: men were always in positions of authority with the priesthood, but there were certain times when women needed to confide in other women.

Once I'd gotten her settled on the couch, Gwen said, “I have something I need to tell you. It's been on my mind for a long time, but I didn't know what to do. I should have said something earlier. I should have been braver.” She finally looked into my eyes.

“You can tell me anything, you know,” I said.

She took a long, shuddering breath. And then another one.

“Is this what you've been talking to Kurt about?” I asked,

She shook her head. “Or at least, I've only told him part of it. That I can't get pregnant. Brad and I have been trying for years, and the doctors say there's really no chance of it now.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry.” I was tempted to offer suggestions of alternatives or hope for the future, but stopped myself. My place was to listen for now.

“We've been talking about adoption, and that's what Brad wants. That's why we've been to talk to the bishop.”

I thought she and Brad had been going in for counseling with Kurt. But it was this instead, though it might not have been entirely separate from counseling.

“We'd like his recommendation on our application to several local adoption agencies now that the church isn't doing adoptions anymore through LDS Family Services. But I can't go through it just yet. It feels like announcing to everyone what the problem is.”

Did she mean infertility? Or did she mean whatever it was she hadn't told Kurt? “What is the problem?” I asked as gently as I could.

“I've only ever talked to one person apart from Brad. But after what happened—” She paused, and said nothing. Her eyes were all over the room, darting from the bookshelves to the piano to the window and then back to the books.

“What happened?” I asked.

She shook her head. “You have to understand,” she said, then fell silent again.

I waited, trying to imagine what she was about to say. I remembered our conversation in the women's bathroom and her distress at the glorification of motherhood—could it be that she didn't want children at all and didn't want to go through with the adoption process? Or was it possible her husband abusing her after all?

“It's so hard—”

“Take your time,” I said, although this might have been the most frustrating conversation I'd ever had. I reminded myself that whatever she was trying to tell me was something she had shared with almost no one.

“Carrie and I—” she started again, but her voice broke.

I remembered Gwen Ferris at Carrie Helm's funeral, and wondered if this young woman had been grieving more deeply than I'd been able to see then. “You were close,” I said, hoping to lead her easily.

“Yes. We'd had a lot of the same experiences.”

I thought about the abuse charges against Jared Helm that had been dropped because Carrie wasn't alive to testify against him anymore. But Brad Ferris? I felt about him the same way I'd felt about Tobias Torstensen. He was so quiet, such a good guy.

I needed to listen to Gwen. I hadn't listened to Carrie Helm. I hadn't had chance enough.

Finally, Gwen said, “After Carrie was gone, I knew I should say something. But Brad said it was up to me. He said that it had to be my choice. So I waited to feel strong enough. Only I don't know if I ever really will be.”

I reached out to put a comforting hand on her, but she flinched before it touched her and I remember suddenly what Brad had said about not knowing how to touch her. Was that what an abusive husband would be worried about?

“It's so hard for me to get the words out,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly clear. “I can see everything in my head, bright and sharp as color. That's part of the problem, actually. I can't get it out of my head sometimes. But it's always there.”

I still had no idea what she was talking about. “Maybe it would help to write it down?” I asked. “I could get some paper and a pen. Or a computer, if you think you can type it.”

She shook her head so hard at that I was worried for a moment she'd get sick from the motion. “I just need to say it. For Carrie. And for me. But I can't do it just for me. It has to be for Carrie.”

“For Carrie,” I echoed. That would be my conversational tactic—just echo what she said, help her get through this.

She took in little breaths, and her whole body seemed to be so fragile, like her skin was about to melt away and reveal everything underneath. “Brad gets so angry when I try to talk to him about it.
I haven't told him many of the details because he just starts smashing things around the house. He scares me a little, making threats.”

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked. “Has he hurt you?” We needed to be clear on this.

Her eyes flew to my face, wide with surprise. “What? No, of course not. No, he's angry at my father.”

I was taken aback. “Your father. Oh.” The pieces clicked together in my head, and I felt sick.

She looked down at her hands, knotting around each other like an intricate knitting pattern. “I—I had an abortion when I was thirteen. And when I was fourteen. And two when I was fifteen,” she said.

I found I couldn't say a word. I felt as if I'd fallen off a cliff and no one could hear my final scream. But it wasn't even my horror. I was only listening to it. This woman was living it. And I'd thought an abusive husband was bad. This was far, far worse.

“And after all that, it seems that there are consequences. I've lost one ovary and my cervix is damaged.” Somehow, I could see the delicate lace she was knitting with her fingers, like a gift from God, the life she had made, with so many holes, so fragile but so incredibly beautiful—so good. She was good.

And I had to put words to it that would make it so ordinary. “Your father sexually abused you?” I said.

“Yes, he …” She trembled and I wished again, desperately, that I could touch her and soothe her fears.

But this was about what she needed, not what I needed. “I'm here,” was all I said, though I knew she knew it.

“It started when I was very young. He did it with both of my sisters, too.”

“What else?” I asked. “You can tell me.”

More knitting. I could see the veins in her hands, blue lines on white. “My mother claimed that she didn't see any of it. She said that it wasn't true, that we were liars. She is still with him.
My father was in the bishopric of the ward for a while. No one would believe that he could do such a thing. He was … very beloved. And he did good things, he really did. He just had this one flaw.”

One flaw? That was one way to put it. A terrible, wrong way. That one flaw had been devastating for this woman. No wonder she was depressed and on medication, as Brad had told me. No wonder she didn't like to be touched. And he had asked me for advice without being able to reveal his wife's secrets to me. I hoped what I had said had been useful; though if it had, it was likely because God had intervened and given me the right words.

“He sounds like a monster,” I said, discovering that my voice was raw and my throat hurt as if I'd been rubbing it with sandpaper. “Gwen, you must realize that you are innocent of all of this. You are a victim of a terrible crime, and your father will have a lot to answer for on Judgment Day.” God had better make sure the man paid for this. I sent the thoughts heavenward. Was it wrong that my prayers could sometimes be vengeful? Maybe I wasn't doing this right.

“You're saying all the same things that Brad says. That my therapist has said. I guess I need to hear it again and again,” said Gwen. “I—it's hard for me not to think of this as God's judgment on me. My father used to say that it was my fault he did it. He said that I was too pretty, that I tempted him. He said that I was born of sin, that Satan inhabited me.”

I cringed. Her father sounded so much like Alex Helm. Alex Helm, who was alone with a little girl. I had no reason to believe he was abusing her that way, but I didn't know if Kelly Helm would be any less damaged in the end.

Gwen's eyes were bright as she said, “I never thought I would get married, really. Getting away from my father was my highest ambition. But then I met Brad—and everything changed. I started to believe I could be happy, have a normal life. You know, I didn't tell him about my past before we got married. I think that was wrong of
me. But I just wanted to forget it had ever been. I thought that if I forgot about it, it would actually disappear as if it never was.”

I could only imagine how her wedding must have been, with her parents at her side. Or had they not come? I suspected they would have, if only for show. They would have wanted her to keep her secret as much as she had, I suppose. And Brad knew nothing of what he was getting into, poor boy.

“I'm glad you came to see me, Gwen. I'm glad you felt able to confide in me. I wish I could give you something in return. Is there anything I can do to help make things easier for you at church?” It seemed like such a small gift, but it was all I had to offer.