For Time and Eternity (22 page)

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

For the first time since I had first uttered the verse under my mother’s watchful eye, I felt no fear in the thought of the Lord claiming my soul that night. I could have died right there, warm in Nathan’s embrace, and happily gone straight into the arms of my Savior. But then, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a giggle on the other side of the door, and a rumbling beneath my ear as Nathan raised his voice.

“Girls. Settle down in there. We have a big day tomorrow.”

And I knew I could not die. Not tonight. My soul might be kept by the Lord, but the souls of my daughters were at stake.

Chapter 20

“Are you happier today?” Lottie touched one little finger to the soft skin just below my eye.

Yesterday, when we’d piled into the wagon to make the drive into Salt Lake City, my eyes had been swollen nearly shut from sleep and tears. This morning, following a surprisingly long, deep sleep, I awoke feeling rested and at peace.

I hugged the girl tightly to me. She was snuggled between a still-sleeping Nathan and me in what I knew to be Rachel’s bed; I looked across her head to where Melissa was sitting up in the pallet of blankets on the floor. “Every day is a reason to be happier than the day before. For we know the Lord has brought us through the night, and he has a plan for us to follow.”

I cocked my ear and listened to the early morning sounds in the house. Just who had slept where, I could only imagine. Rachel and Tillman’s home seemed ever-expanding. Amanda had been staying here for the past two weeks and had made herself quite at home in its luxury, as evidenced in her nearly possessive behavior the previous evening when we arrived just in time for supper.

“I’m glad she’s marrying Nathan tomorrow,” Rachel had whispered into my ear, pulling me aside from the livelier conversation. “Otherwise Tillman would snatch her up, and I’d be bunking with the children in the nursery.”

In the gray light of morning, I stretched under the sheets, wondering if that wasn’t where she’d slept last night.

A soft knock on the door, and Rachel’s head appeared. “We’re all due at the Endowment House at ten. Sister Amanda’s already gone.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after eight. You can imagine, she was quite excited.”

“Oh, I can well imagine.”

Rachel ducked out of the room and closed the door, leaving our little family alone together for the last time. I didn’t see it as such at the moment, but looking back, it’s clear. We fell immediately into the order Rachel established. The next hour we were out of bed and running to and fro, washing up, dressing. In the confusion of it all, I lost track of Nathan’s whereabouts. I don’t know what I expected—one last chance to plead with him, perhaps. Or even something as simple as a final moment together. Instead, I found myself securing a bow in Lottie’s hair when I looked up and, out of the corner of my eye, saw him donning his hat, preparing to go. For the first time ever, I had no desire to follow.

* * *

The room was small and hot and dark. Windowless, lest any of the secrets leak through the glass to unworthy eyes. I could not but remember the day Nathan and I married. It was hot that day, too, but the heat came from the summer sun. The light bounced off the river, and I felt like our vows carried on the breeze, straight up to God. We had the entire wagon party as our witnesses, besides, but all I saw was Nathan, his face framed by cloudless blue sky, and I couldn’t wait to start my life.

The marriage of Nathan and Sister Amanda held none of that magic, though the ceremony proceeded like the passage of some mystical rite. Bishop Johansson stood at the front of the room, looking as dour as he had the day he so gruffly dismissed Nathan’s work last spring in the shadow of the new temple. Rachel and Tillman stood with me—all of us dressed in pure white. None of the sister wives had been invited. Sister Amanda would have no one. Without a recommend, her father could not witness the ceremony, and I admit to feeling a pang of companionship when I realized that this was something we would share, being married alone.

Then again, whom did we need but Nathan?

Bishop Johansson held his hands high, saying, “Let them enter!” and two doors on either side of the front of the room opened. So seamlessly did the doors blend into the wall, I hardly noticed they were there until that moment. Nathan and Amanda’s entrance took my breath away.

Amanda’s skin, pale and translucent, took on an iridescent glow, almost reflecting the white silk of the sacred dress. She’d been chewing on her lip—a nervous habit, I would soon learn—and her mouth stood out bold and nearly red in contrast, the crimson visible through the veil. Even though she knew her father would not be in attendance, she still took in the room, and I imagined a hopeful look in her blue eyes. For just that second, my feeling of companionship became one of temporary compassion. Her hair was left long and straight, simply parted down the middle and swept behind her shoulders to encase that perfect, porcelain face within wide, dark wings beneath the white veil.

This was an image that could never exist outside of this room. There was otherworldliness to her beauty, and for a moment I forgot about who she was and what she meant to my family. To my husband.

My husband.

I’d seen Nathan in temple clothing once before, at our own sealing ceremony the year after we were married, but our garments were made of coarse, homespun wool. Now, here he was, also in pure white, save for the green apron tied at his waist. Sister Amanda wore one, too, representing the garments worn by the first husband and wife—Adam and Eve. I knew that story, of course, enough to know that Adam and Eve only donned clothing to hide their nakedness. Their shame. Why was it, then, that neither Nathan nor Amanda felt shame in that moment? Why was I the one standing in this unholy place wishing I could hide from God?

Sweat broke out on my brow, calling me to instinctively lift my sleeve to wipe it. Rachel caught my eye and gave a quick, stern shake of her head, and I dropped my arm immediately. As Nathan and Amanda took their place at the altar, facing each other as they knelt on the padded benches on either side, I felt drops slide down my face, playing substitute for tears I dared not shed.

“Brother Nathan,” the bishop intoned, “and Sister Amanda. Please join hands.”

They did, as we had, their fifth fingers locked, hands overlapped with their first fingers pressed against the wrist of the other. I remember that grip, how Nathan had smiled and told me later that my pulse was racing like an Indian pony. I looked down and touched my own thumb to the tip of my first finger, felt rough ridges of my skin. In our years together he’d taken my hand to lift me when I’d fallen, to pull me through snowstorms, to bring me through the early pains of childbirth. Mostly, I loved the feel of his hand in mine—not in this symbolic intertwining, but when we were simply walking together, strolling without clear intent or direction. His hand would never feel the same again.

“Brother Nathan, do you take Sister Amanda by the right hand and receive her unto yourself to be your lawful and wedded wife for time and all eternity, with a covenant and promise that you will observe and keep all the laws, rites, and ordinances pertaining to this Holy Order of Matrimony in the New and Everlasting Covenant, and this you do in the presence of God, angels, and these witnesses of your own free will and choice?”

“Yes.” No hesitation, and with just enough of a nod of his head that the tassel of his temple cap swayed like a pendulum below his ear.

Bishop Johansson repeated the vow, and Amanda gave the same answer, though I daresay with a good deal more enthusiasm than Nathan had displayed.

“By virtue of the Holy Priesthood and the authority vested in me, I pronounce you, Nathan and Amanda, legally and lawfully husband and wife for time and all eternity . . .”

Sweat now gathered at the nape of my neck, pouring down my back in rivulets, yet I felt cold—chilled in this stifling, airless room. I do not know how I remained standing, feeling neither my feet nor the floor throughout the rest of Bishop Johansson’s pronouncement.

“. . . and I seal upon you the blessings of the holy resurrection with power to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection clothed in glory, immortality, and eternal lives . . .”

Those words ushered in a new level of mourning. Not only was I losing my husband as I knew him for the rest of my life here on earth, but he would be no part of my eternity. Not if he believed that this man, this awful, little unkind man, had the power to bestow his salvation.

“. . . and I seal upon you the blessings of kingdoms, thrones, principalities, powers, dominions, and exaltations, with all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . .”

I listened to the words as I never had before. I saw Nathan as I never had before. My humble, pleasing, loving husband, driven by spiritual greed. Those words, eerily familiar, the temptation offered to Christ by none other than Satan himself. What dominion did he need beyond our little home and his workshop? What exaltations besides the excited shouts of our little girls every time he entered a room? He made love to me telling me I was his blessing, that if Heavenly Father never gave him another thing, I would be enough. But for me, he would spend eternity alone. And now . . .

“. . . and I say unto you: be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth that you may have joy and rejoicing in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. All these blessings, together with all the blessings appertaining unto the New and Everlasting Covenant, I seal upon you by virtue of the Holy Priesthood, through your faithfulness, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

The room echoed, “Amen,” but I chose to breathe instead. If my voice was missed, no one seemed to notice. Nathan and Amanda stood, and she shakily lifted the veil from her face.

“And now,” Bishop Johansson said, “Sister Amanda Fox, you were given a new name at the time of your Endowment, the name that will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, the name that you will answer to throughout eternity. You must whisper your name into the ear of your husband, that he may call you to him at the time of resurrection, when you will continue to keep your vows unto each other in celestial marriage.”

Amanda moved toward Nathan and placed her right hand on his shoulder. Then, cupping her hand around his ear, she leaned in to whisper. It was the most intimate moment between them I’d ever witnessed, and I loathed the instinct that brought his hand to her waist to steady her.

When she pulled away, they stood, motionless, staring into each other’s eyes. In a tone completely indifferent to the moment, Bishop Johansson said, “You may kiss her if you like.”

Sometimes I think if I’d only looked away at that moment, I might have been able to bear a life sentence of plural marriage. It was, after all, only for this lifetime, and there was no reason to think the Lord could not bring me comfort in the midst of this pain. But the sight of his lips touched to hers—sweet and chaste as the kiss might have been—brought my heart around a corner to a new, dark place. I wanted to believe this was their first kiss, that my husband had respected the boundaries of our marriage to that extent. And if it were, I well knew just how Amanda felt at that moment. That first kiss. The tantalizing combination of joy and fear fluttering between her stomach and her spine. I’d felt it just the same. Not only in our first kiss, but with nearly every embrace. Brief as this moment was, my mind raced through it, seeing every kiss, feeling every touch. I brought every moment of our love to the surface, wishing I could somehow take them in my hands, wad them up, and hurl them at his feet.

But then, they were my treasures, because I loved him. From the moment he met me at the crossroad until the moment he kissed his new wife, I loved him. In truth, I love him still, that being the one burden the Lord has refused to lift from me. As I watched them draw apart from each other, her lips newly christened by his, I realized they did not vow to love each other. They were lawful and wedded, for time and eternity, according to the ordinances of Joseph Smith’s church, and I was not so naive as to think that they did not, but I knew Nathan
could
not love her as he did me. He might someday, but for now, no. Amanda did not rescue him. She was not his salvation, as he had once claimed I was.

There I was in borrowed robes, deep in the center of a pagan temple, witness to words spoken by an unholy priest, and yet clearly the Lord was speaking to me.

Listen. Think.

When I married Nathan, I’d vowed to join my life to his under a mantle of false teachings, binding me to this church as much as to him. It wasn’t until I heard my husband bind himself to another that I could finally be set free.

O Lord . . .
He drew me in, even in that place, even at that moment.

I longed to get away, be alone, find a quiet place to devote my spirit to the Lord and listen for his voice, but I was swept away by the hand of Rachel, back to the room where we stepped out of our temple dresses. I turned my face from the sourness of mine, folded it, and laid it on a bench for some sister Saint to retrieve and, I hoped, launder.

“It will get easier.” Rachel turned so I could button up the back of her dress. “Pretty soon, she’ll just be like a part of you.”

“She’ll never be a part of me.” I slipped the last little piece of round, painted wood through its hole and smoothed the back of Rachel’s dress. “She is his wife.”

“And your sister wife.”

“No.” I stepped into my skirt and slipped my arms through the sleeves of the bodice. “She is nothing to me.”

And neither is he.
Though I dared not speak such a sentiment aloud. I wasn’t sure myself what it meant. I only knew that, over the course of this ceremony, Nathan had once and for all been displaced as the center of my life. His home would not forever be my home. His god would never be my god. I was bound to him by the law, and I still loved him, but that love was swiftly becoming something akin to nostalgia—a passion relegated to the girl I was long ago. I would live my life as a bride of Christ alone.