Saints (73 page)

Of course I do.

“He’ll come for me.”

“The Lord?”

“The Lord’s too busy. No, the man God put at my head years ago, who has guided me ever since. Joseph. I’ve felt as though he is still watching over the Church, saying, No, Brigham. Careful, Brigham. What are you so timid about, Brigham? And now he’ll come and say, Well, you’re finally ready. Come on into the Kingdom, I’ve got work for you that’s been piling up for years.”

He smiled, but his eyes were filled with tears, as if to say, Hasten the day. He said nothing more, just lay there until he slept.

Dinah blew out her candle. But she did not sleep for a while. Just lay awake, wondering if Brigham was right. If Joseph comes for him, might he not also come for me? What will I say to him then? And as so many times before, her lips moved in silent rehearsal for that conversation, until at last she slept.

Brigham died four months later, calling out Joseph’s name. Dinah was not there; she was in a meeting of the Relief Society presidency. She did not grieve; she merely thought congratulatory thoughts, and envied him a little.

The day before the funeral she submitted a letter of resignation to John Taylor, who as President of the Twelve had already taken over the leadership of the Church. The day after the funeral, the letter came back with a curt note in Taylor’s own hand:

Sister Young, I am returning this letter because it is not appropriate. Upon the death of the President of the Church, all officers who are not ordained priesthood authorities are automatically released from their positions. Therefore the office of president of the Relief Society is vacant, and with thanks for your competent service for these many years I inform you that the place will be filled by another sister.

As she walked from the carriage to Charlie’s house, Dinah heard the booming of fireworks celebrating the end of Utah’s direct rule by the federal government. Utah was a state, and at last the Saints would be able to govern themselves. She tried not to think of what had been given up to achieve peace with the government. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Children were shouting far down the street. No, not down the street. They were playing in the back yard of Charlie’s house. They did not know that their grandfather—or was he their great-grandfather?—was dying inside the house. But that was right. Children should not be interrupted by death, not the death of an old man.

But he isn’t an old man, she thought. He’s younger than I am, and he has no business dying now. There should be some order in these things. He still has a young wife, who is pregnant with their first child. Surely God would have taken account of that and taken Dinah in his place.

She did not knock at the door—Sally always chided her if she acted so formally. Inside, there were men and women of many ages, and many children, too, sitting or standing or walking, conversing quietly or weeping or just silent, staring into space.

“Aunt Dinah,” someone murmured in greeting, and then others noticed her and came to shake her hand or embrace her. Many of them were almost strangers to her. She had to ask their names. You’re the one who lives in Mexico. You came all the way from Ephraim. Oh, yes, Hannah’s girl, you married Peter Black’s boy. Slowly she made her way to the stairs, then excused herself and began to climb. Charlie had sent for her. He wanted to talk to her before he died.

The wives were gathered in Charlie’s room. Sally, Maria, Hannah. Where was Harriette? Oh, yes. Harriette died years ago. I must remember not to ask for her—it annoys the children, they think I’m losing my mind. They don’t realize that when you live at the edge of death you can’t possibly keep straight which of the people you know have already stepped over, and which are still lingering like cowards on the brink. At this age it doesn’t make much difference, does it?

Sally, Maria, Hannah. Who was missing that should be there? The young one, of course. Gwen. She must be in the house. If she isn’t here in this room it’s because we’re going to talk about her.

“Did you come to talk to me or admire my wives?” Charlie’s voice was so soft that for a moment Dinah didn’t realize he had spoken.

“You sent for me,” she said.

“There weren’t enough people here,” he answered. She laughed. Was he smiling? Was that all the laughter he could manage now?

“Well, then, let’s get on with it. What is it you want to tell me about Gwen?”

They looked startled. Dinah loved doing that. She used her brains, and they all assumed she was getting revelations.

“Her baby’s not due for three more months,” Hannah said. “We don’t know what to do with her.”

“I’m not rich,” Charlie said.

“We all have children with plenty of money,” Maria said. “And we’re all old women. Except Gwen.”

“It was stupid to marry her in the first place,” Sally said. Everyone knew that she wasn’t angry. She had merely become outspoken in her old age.

“No it wasn’t,” Charlie said quietly.

“Seventeen years old then. And doesn’t have a baby till six years later. You should have listened to me, Charlie. I don’t know whose timing is worse, yours or hers.”

“Don’t scold,” Charlie said. “I wouldn’t have married her if I hadn’t thought I was going to live forever.”

“You’ll get tired,” Maria told him. “Let us tell it.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Sally said. “Then he won’t get angry.”

Dinah listened to their explanations, but she did not need to be told. Gwen was still young, still pretty. Charlie had no fortune to support her, only a little money when all debts were settled and the house was sold. It wasn’t fair to leave her still in her youth, with a baby; she needed someone to look after her, help with the child, let her have some freedom so she might find another husband.

Charlie had married her in the last few weeks before the Manifesto. It had been common practice then for young women to marry into grand old polygamous families. Now Mormons no longer entered into polygamy. She was already a relic, and too young to live the rest of her life that way. It would be hard for her to find a young husband when she was sealed to another man. Now that a man couldn’t marry several wives, young Mormons wanted to make sure their one wife was sealed to them for eternity. Otherwise she and all their children would, by the law of the Church, belong to the first husband forever.

“With all that against her,” Hannah said, “she doesn’t need to be tied down with a child, too.”

“I should think,” Dinah said, “that the child would be a comfort to her.”

The wives looked at each other. Charlie shook his head. “She’s a good woman, Dinah, but I don’t think she wants to be a widowed mother.”

Now Dinah understood why they were being so careful to explain it all to her. A decision had already been reached; they did not want advice. They didn’t want someone to help Gwen out for a while. They wanted someone to take the child.

“Do I look to be the right age to take on such a responsibility?”

“My granddaughter Sally Ann lives close to you,” Sally said. “She says that she’ll look in on you now and then.”

“Then let her take the baby.”

Hannah looked at Dinah helplessly. “Dinah, Gwen says she’ll only give the baby up if she gives it to you.”

“Then she should keep it! I’m a doddering old woman and I’ll probably be dead before Christmas.”

Charlie raised a hand, beckoned to her. “Dinah,” he said. “How many times have I ever told you what to do, in all our lives?”

“Never that I can remember.”

“I was saving up for now.”

“If you tell me that I should do it for my own good—”

“Gwen adores you, Dinah.”

“I’ve only talked to her a few times.”

“Her mother always told her as she was growing up that when Gwen was an infant, dying of a disease that made her so weak she couldn’t even cry, Aunt Dinah Kirkham prayed for her, and she was healed.”

“Am I to be punished for that now?” But Dinah did not feel as flippant as she sounded. She felt a circle closing around her. She felt a change coming in her life. She was not looking for any change but death.

“Gwen wants to keep the baby and sacrifice her future to rearing it. You see, she loves me. And loves the idea of a baby. She doesn’t know yet that the child will grow up and leave, and there she’ll be in her forties with nothing, with no one. I want her to give up my baby so she can have a life of her own. She’s given enough to me these six years of marriage. To all of us.”

“She’s a good girl,” Hannah said.

“Dinah,” said Charlie. “It’s killing me faster to talk so much.”

“Charlie, I gave up the idea of children fifty years ago. I’m too old.”

“Dinah, listen. I’ve been worrying about you. I kept trying to understand why God was keeping you alive so long after your life’s work was over. I was praying about it. And that’s when I thought of this. It’s not just for Gwen. You’ve been Aunt Dinah to three generations of the Church. Now here it is: the Lord wants you to have a child. You will be giving a gift to Gwen and to the child and to me. Will you be like Sarah, and laugh at the Lord behind the door?”

Dinah thought of a scrap of paper that she kept in a small wooden box on her bureau at home. She hadn’t read the words for years. She only looked at the childish scrawl now and then with a vague yearning that she refused to name. She named it now: Gone. Lost opportunity. The part of life that she had given up for the gospel’s sake. God had given her three years of marriage to Joseph Smith, thirty years of service to the Church, and twenty years of wasted time since then. She had kept busy enough, writing reminiscences of Joseph and Brigham and Heber, writing poetry, and talking to the endless stream of pilgrims who found her door and said, You came to my mother; you blessed my brother; you spoke once and changed my life; I wouldn’t be so happy today if it hadn’t been for you. It was pleasant, but it was wasted time. And under it all had been this small feeling: Gone. The little boy calling out to her on the boat. The little girl crying for her mother. And now a mother wants to give her child to me.

“Do you really think the Lord wants me to do it?”

“You’re the Prophetess,” Charlie said. “I can’t speak for the Lord. But I tell you that
I
want you to do it. I’ll go a lot easier knowing Gwen is free and my child has a good mother.”

“For a man who’s dying you talk a lot.” What would Joseph tell me to do?

“Say yes and leave me alone to be with my wives.”

Joseph would say, When the Lord opens a door, a wise man walks through it. “Yes,” Dinah said. Then she bent to Charlie and kissed him. “You’re a good brother, Charlie. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll say hello to all your friends for you,” he said.

She left him with his family then, and went looking for Gwen. She was not far off; she was only waiting for Dinah to leave before she went back in to be with her husband. Dinah was not halfway down the hall before she emerged from an open door.

“Aunt Dinah?” she said.

Dinah looked at her. She was well along into the pregnancy, plumping at the waist and bosom, but still thin at the face, still frail and hopeful-looking. “Why did you marry him?” Dinah asked, because old people can ask anything they like.

“Because I loved him. I never knew my father. Charlie was the closest thing I had to a father. I grew up next door.”

“Yes, I knew that.” Charlie had told her once—it was Charlie, wasn’t it?—that Gwen had proposed to
him
. Marry me, before the church gives up the Principle. “I told him that I’d take your child, if you wanted to give it to me.”

Gwen started to cry, suddenly, without restraint. In surprise Dinah held her, let her sob into her shoulder. Was she crying because she would have to give up her baby? Or in gladness that Dinah would take it?

“Thank you,” Gwen said.

Gladness, then. I only wonder—will
I
be glad? And the child—will the child be glad of this?

Charlie died that night, reciting poetry up to the last moment. His last words were a poem by Herrick. Sally declared that he did it because he knew she never liked that poem.

Four months later, Gwen gave birth to a daughter and named the child LaDell. Dinah reared her from infancy. She was a bright and beautiful child, but to Dinah’s surprise she learned things that Dinah never meant to teach. She learned to be stubborn; she learned to think of herself as the equal of any person or any problem. When LaDell became a woman, she went to college in New York and became a skeptic and had a love affair that went sour. Every day Dinah prayed for her and worried about her and wrote letters to her—and one day Dinah realized: For years I did all this for other people’s children. This child grieves me, but she is my own, and that makes even the grief into a kind of gladness.