The men have shut me out of their tent again, having another vision probably, and it’s not like I’m ungrateful. I’m not. I knew when we were married he wasn’t going to be like other men. I could see it in those visionary eyes from the start. He was gentle, wealthy, more than a little absent-minded, but I thought I could manage that. He’s so passionate about his ideals, and when he told me what he saw in his dreams, I was willing to follow him anywhere. But now, hundreds of miles from home, I begin to wonder if he actually knows where we’re going. We’ve already had to go back once, and I don’t mean to murmur but I’m not the only one thinking it. There are raised voices in the tent almost every day now.
Even though I know he beholds the throne of God, I am not sure he knows how to see his own boys sitting down right in front of him. Laman makes some really good points but they all keep talking over him, and Nephi just wants to please his dad. I worry about all of them. Especially Sam. They are still so young, and Lemuel was finally starting to make some friends when God had to go and upset the whole apple cart because his father had a dream.
And about that fiasco with the brass plates, let me just say I didn’t mean to speak against my husband, but no one ever asked me how I felt sending my teenagers back to Jerusalem on a dangerous mission. They almost died, you know. If I was involved at all, I would have at least told them to pick up some wives while they were at it, but no one thinks of that. Those men love their scriptures so much I sometimes wonder if they might end up marrying them instead. I guess the “records of our forefathers” forgot to mention that a new nation has to have foremothers, too. The devil’s in the details, so they say, but whenever Lehi gets an idea into that righteous head of his he has to jump up and “go and do” right then and there before I even have a chance to pack a proper lunch.
Speaking of which, Nephi talks about how he obtained the brass plates “not knowing beforehand the things he should do” yet they still expect me to come up with a meal plan and deliver it at precise times. Well, let me just say that a woman can’t go into the kitchen with an attitude like that, because no matter how much faith I have there won’t be any drunk turkey lying there waiting for me to cut off its head and get it dressed for dinner. They just don’t understand that what the wandering Israelites called manna was probably just their wives remembering to set aside the mutton and put together a salad the night before, but to their husbands it was a miracle every time.
And speaking of miracles, I know for a fact I could have made a nice salad when Nephi broke his bow, but they insisted that this journey was going to be some kind of boys’ night out and that it was God’s will that we live like carnivores because apparently every man has to have his meat. They hardly noticed when my slow cooker broke down. I had to scour the countryside for animal chips to burn so they could have roast beef dinner, but they were too busy theologizing over my meal to pay any attention to a crisis in the kitchen, too busy arguing about whatever new thing was in their heads to notice their own mother’s plight. Then they go and fall to pieces over Nephi’s bow? Good grief. My daughters and I silently cleared their places but one of these times I may not be able to resist the urge to smash plates over their clueless heads. Lord, give me strength. When I mentioned how hard it was to keep a fire going on the move, Lehi’s solution was, “Let’s just eat raw meat instead,” and he said it all pleased-like, as if he had just made every housewife’s dream come true. You should have seen the blood dribbling down my chin. I cried a lot that day.
And like I said before, if they would just ask me, I would tell them plain as plain that they forgot to bring their wives. I know they can’t stay married to their brass plates forever and my sons are at the age that they should start thinking about girls, but Lehi has them poring over Isaiah as if a bride to them were only a metaphor. When I try to put this into words, my feelings stick in my throat like those stupid pieces of raw meat, the meal they claim will make women as strong as men, but who’s to know because they never ask me to do anything more than empty their latrines.
When I read Nephi’s version of things, I was annoyed that I had to remind him that he should at least mention his sisters, since they basically have carried the show from the time we left (I couldn’t survive without them!) and he laughed and said “oops” and promised me he would mention them in his next book, 2nd Nephi, and I thought, “Oh you’re going to write another one, are you? I thought we had enough books of scripture already!” And I should know because I have to clear them off the dinner table so many times a day. Good Lord, Nephi, more than another book what I think you really need is a girl. But like I said, I would love to mention that they forgot their wives back in Jerusalem but the words stick in my throat.
I was glad when we found the Liahona, though, because now whenever Lehi wants to go to the right and I want to go left toward that little bit of green, the Liahona agrees with me every time. I try not to look too smug, but it’s nice to see that the Lord’s latest gift isn’t all about establishing patterns of male efficiency and cutting paths with a straight line. My new brass friend seems to be weaving us back and forth through the more fertile places and honestly, I’m finally starting to have a nice time. Maybe that’s because the men’s egos have gone down a notch since I found it outside my tent. Nephi wrote that Lehi found it for some reason. He would say that, of course, always eager to please his dad, but we all know who is the first one up in the morning while Lehi is dreaming his dreams. The men haven’t mentioned that these little scenic detours were what I was telling them we should do all along. They talk as if men only have to be diligent and pay heed to the Liahona, but I think it would be simpler for them to preach that men should just listen to their mothers, since divine brass balls aren’t generally lying around for most people and it appears to me that we basically say the same thing, but I have to pick my battles with them because I know men can be fragile.
I will mention, though, that the boys were positively seething the time I asked we go around this one giant hill because I was too pregnant. I argued, “Maybe God doesn’t always want us to move mountains or climb them to the top, maybe we can just go around them for once,” but they said this was the most direct path forward and “God doesn’t swerve neither to the left nor to the right,” so imagine their surprise when they cast their eyes at their blessed brass ball. At first they thought I had fiddled with it (as if they ever let me get close to it for five seconds) because to them you’d think a woman’s sense of direction was some kind of devilish plot to subvert their divine right to lead. So I just smiled and asked sweetly, “Which way should we go now, dear?” and when the Liahona pointed us around that hill, I tried not to look too pleased with their deflated muttering.
But anyway, I was pretty far along with Jacob at that point in time, and boy was Lehi surprised when I went into labor the very next week. He looked scared as a rabbit out there with no midwife to look after me, but I knew what I was doing and had already given my daughters careful instruction. They did very well. “My firstborn in the wilderness,” Lehi calls him, but I am starting to wonder if I haven’t always been birthing sons in the wilderness, even back when I was in the posh suburbs of Jerusalem. This journey has got me thinking my whole life differently, as if being married to God’s own prophet isn’t its own kind of lonely desert. He talks to Him more than he talks to me these days, and to be honest I am not even sure Lehi knew I was carrying, and I have to say that for a visionary man there sure are a few things I wish he could see.
Christopher Bissett has a BA in English from BYU and minored in Women’s Studies. He also has a Bachelor’s of Nursing from the University of Lethbridge and works as a registered nurse. He has published poetry in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Whetstone Magazine, and BYU Studies Quarterly. He currently lives with his wife Rebecca and their five children in Raymond, Alberta.
