The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (20 page)

Chapter 25

There was
another journal entry
, but
Ben
needed a break. He
felt that
the
purchase of
a
Harley
Davidson
was a turning
point
in the story
.
Zachariah Hinckley had
been transformed by
th
e heroes’
posthumous
baptizing ceremony
, not just from
a car driver
to
a motorcycle rider, but
from
a devout
LDS
family man
, a good son, husband, and father, to a man
possessed by an urge to get away from where he had been until then—physically, mentally, maybe even spiritually.

Ben
made sure that the journal was safely saved on his iPhone.
Sitting back in his chair, the adrenaline rush slowly subsiding, he was overwhelmed by a craving for
a
smoke. F
or a moment
he
considered fishing the remains
of his cigarettes
out of t
he trash
. Instead, he stepped back out to the balcony
. A few deep breaths
and
stretching his arms sideways
,
as if he were nailed to a cross,
somehow staunched the urge.
He
went back inside
and
locked the glass doors
.

After leaving a note for Keera on the inside of the front door, where she wouldn’t miss it in the morning, h
e
went upstairs,
undressed
,
and slipped into bed, scooting close to Keera until his body spooned hers and his face rested on the pillow by her nape. She stirred but didn’t wake up, h
er breathing slow and peaceful.

Gradually his own breathing calmed to match hers, the tension in his muscles loosened, and the rapid slideshow in his mind went from Zachariah Hinckley’s life and death to something less defined,
flashes of sight
s, of
trees and farmhouses, viewed through the framed
face
shield of
his
motorcycle
helmet
.

Part II
:

The Ghost

Chapter 26

Keera woke up at s
ix
. She slipped out of Ben’s embrace and stood beside the bed for a moment, watching him sleep.
His hair covered most of his face, and he snored lightly. She pulled the blanket off his shoulder and kissed the tattoo—a football he
lmet protecting a bottle of Bud Light
.

A half hour later, she was downstairs, dressed and ready for
her
twenty-five
-minute
commute
. The coffeemaker had started automatically, and she poured herself a cup, adding a few drops of milk for color.

About to leave, Keera found a yellow Post-it note stuck to the inside of the front door.
Written in Ben’s familiar cursive, it said:

To: H
opelessly r
omantic

From: Cynic w/
potential

Message: Zachariah didn’t say
,
“
Palmyra!
”

Keera
laughed. She w
as intrigued. If not his wife’s name, what was Zachariah’s last word? Did he provide an answer in the personal journal that Ben was reading?

She took a fresh Post-it note and scribbled:

To:
Cynic w. potential

From:
Hopelessly romantic

Message:
Did he say
,
“Nosy reporter! Buzz out of my
private
journal!
”?

It was cold in the garage, especially when the door rolled up and a puff of outside air ruffled the pile of newspaper in the recycle bin. The Mustang took a couple of tries to start, and Keera revved up while setting the radio to NPR. She glanced in the mirror and backed out of the garage, hitting something that made a lot of noise.

“What
was that?
” She stopped the car and got out.

Behind the Mustang
, she found
a
portable
basketball hoop
on its side
. She recognized it as belonging to the neighbors at the other end of the
six
-unit townhome
building.
It was odd.
Who would roll a basketball hoop
all the way over
here
and
leave
it by
the
garage door?

Checking her car,
Keera
found a small dent in the rear bumper, not very noticeable beside all the other dents and scrap
e
s she had accumulated over the years.

There was no sound of anyone waking up, especially not Ben, who could sleep through a thunderstorm. None of the neighbors
were
out, and Keera had no time to spare. She dragged the fallen basketball hoop out of the way and got back in her car.

Ben found the yellow Post-it note stuck to the coffeemaker and laughed.
He drank his coffee while watching the news.
Starting with
CNN,
he switched
at every commercial
break
to another channel—NBC, CBS, FOX, and back to CNN.

Every development in the economy, international affairs, and even sports, circled back to the coming elections: Will it help
Joe Morgan win the White House, becom
ing the first Mormon president?

In a segment about elections paraphernalia, the FOX
News
anchor
showed a photo of a bumper sticker that said:
President Joe Mormon
!

“We asked the Morgan campaign,” said the anchor, “
about the twisting of the candidate’s last name to send such a sectarian message, a jab of prejudice masquerading as humor.
A spokesman for the candidate replied that Governor Morgan
feels that the only test of faith for a presidential candidate should be whether he
believes in American exceptionalism
.
”

Chapter 27

Z.H. Journal
Entry # 11
:

My VA therapists always
reminded me that the best cure was
the human ability to forget. It
was the most
important capability
we
possessed, they explained, the
mental mechanism that
files
away
painful memories
.
In the two decades since my injury, I’ve
become very good
at tucking away the
year
of blood and gore
in Kuwait, the year of multiple surgeries and physical therapy at
Bethesda Naval Hospital
, and
the years of trying to fit
my deformed self
into
a square
life
of
a husband, a father, and a breadwinner in a government job that was becoming
less
meaning
ful
every
year.

My f
aith helped me make peace with life
.
A
s a Latter
-d
ay Saint,
I
was taught that my
mortal
existence was
temporary.
To earn my place in the most exalted Celestial Kingdom,
I
must
serve righteously as
a
Saint, as a man
of
the
priesthood
,
and as
the head of
my
growing
family. We
’ve always
participated in all the ward’s activities,
and Palmyra
has served as a leader in
the
Relief Society
—the LDS women’s organization dedicated to supporting the all-m
ale priesthood through
charitable work for needy Mormons and Gentiles.

O
ur children
made us proud as they stood up
to speak at testimony time,
especially Gilead,
who at three years old brought tears to
everyone
’s eyes when he recited for the first time the foundational testimony of the LDS churc
h with a few cute variations: “
I know
…I know…
that
Jesus…he told our Prophet…Mister Smith…to be good…because we…we are the only…only only only…true church…because we are saints.
”

Shortly
after the Medal of Honor
baptizing ceremony
,
Bishop
Morgan
was called to
serv
e
as Stake President and
passed the
ward
’s
bishop
man
t
le to
a
friendly CPA
named Canaan Linder,
whose wife
Nora
had grown up with Palmyra
. We became close friends,
and Brother
Linder
called on me to serve as
lead
er
of
the church’s Boy Scout
tro
op
,
which
over the succeeding years
gave me the opportunity to
spend time with my boys and
officiate at
each one’s
Eagle Scout A
ward ceremony. As
the years
passed, I rarely thought of
the
heroes’ posthumous baptizing.

Meanwhile, Joe Morgan
’s prestige
grew within the
church
’s national l
eadership
. As the
CEO of a
n investment bank
listed on the stock exchange, his income was a matter of public record and of
many Saints’
admiration, as ours was a faith that encouraged material success. But his
financial and
ecclesiastical prominence
did not
diminish
his friendl
iness
.
We still saw
him,
Emma
,
and their
growing
children
at ward meetings and
attended
his
occasional religious
lectures
. B
ut even those contacts declined when
he made a surprising decision to quit an immensely successful business career in favor of political office.

Joe
Morgan’s run
for governor
as a Republican in the mostly
D
emocratic state of Maryland was a long shot, but he won on a businesslike platform against a Democratic
incumbent
with a closet
full
of skeletons.
F
our years later,
however,
the Democrats nominated a strong candidate
and
Morgan
declined to run
for a second term
in Maryland
.
Instead, he
decided to seek
the GOP nomination
for
p
resident of the United States. He
lost
the primaries to a senator
,
who
in turn lost
the general elections
to the
D
emocratic candidate
.

Over th
e
years, my peaceful existence gave the illusion of a secure
existence, both present and future,
for me, Palm
yra, and our
children
.
In addition to Paul, Gilead, and Maxine, we had Anderson in 1997, Lynne in 1999, Michael in 2000, Martha in 2002, and Deborah in 2004.
M
y beautiful
children
filled
my life
with light
, which
fought a continuous match against
the
recurring
dark moods
that
preyed on
my mind. Nothing could totally cure the
chronic ac
hes
of
my
physical
injur
ies
and
the mental pain of battlefield
trauma
, b
ut a
dvancements in prescription drugs for physical
pain
and mental
distress
helped maintain the illusion of normalcy, and my Harley Davidson took me into the
hills of w
estern Maryland whenever I needed to
get
away
.