Today, we sustained a new Primary presidency—Becky Howell, President; Gina Torres, First Counselor; April Stevens, Second Counselor; and Claudia Pierre, Secretary. It was an inclusive and diverse presidency, reflecting our ward’s makeup—two white sisters, a Latina sister, and a Haitian sister.
Not included was my wife, Kara McGovern. We have lived here for five years. She has never been called to be a Primary teacher or even a nursery assistant. I suppose she never will be.
After the sustaining and sacrament, Bishop Terry turned the time over to us for the bearing of testimonies. Up first was five-year-old Hyrum Howell, the sixth of seven kids, all named after Church historial figures ranging from Eliza, the oldest, to Sidney, the youngest.
Hyrum clambered onto the stool at the podium, wrenched the microphone to his mouth, and exclaimed, “I like to bear my pessimony that I know the Church is true.”
He says this every time, and every time, I never hear anything he says after because I love the word pessimony. Dear Hyrum, some of us are indeed pessimistic because the Church might actually be true.
His mother came up after because, you know, the calling and all. She was humbled and overwhelmed and grateful and very conscious of how special all the children of the ward were to Jesus. I suppose this had to include our two seated between us, Briley (8) and Saylor (2).
Then it was time for our monthly sin-dump from Sister Webster who was so grateful for Jesus because she didn’t know how she survived all those drugs and that lifestyle from her teens.
Next came Brother Flanagan who had just been down to the federal penitentiary in Tucson to visit his brother and was so grateful that the Lord loved prisoners too, even the worst of them. That inspired my elders quorum buddy Billy Traynor to lean over the pew and whisper in my ear, “Dude, he can not keep talking about his brother and not tell us what he’s in for.”
I smiled. “We could just Google it,” I said.
“But we don’t know his name,” said Billy. “You know, Whitey Bulger was in that prison for a while. Other Brother Flanagan has to be a baaaad dude.”
The other two new Primary counselors shared their testimonies, and the outgoing president, Sister Alvarez, spoke about how much the calling and children had meant to her. Then we had old Sister Salinas, who had to be roughly 95, tell us again about how the Virgin Mary appeared to her in her lowest point and told her that sisters in dresses would tell her how to turn her life around. This always upsets Brother and Sister Roberts because we don’t technically believe in the Virgin Mary, at least not as a deity. But she could be an angel, right? Just like Moroni? Just let Sister Salinas have her virgin, for crying out loud. That’s what I say.
The bishop looked ready to get up to end the meeting when Kara stood. I adjusted my knees, or pretended to anyway, to let her out. Part of why I sit next to the aisle is to discourage her physically from bearing her testimony. She never takes the hint. She goes up at least every other month, and she always, always, always bears testimony about the temple and sealings and living together as an eternal family forever. It’s all safe content for testimony meeting, unless you happen to see our membership record and wonder where Laila, our second born, is.
Sometimes, I put my head down and other times I stare at Kara and try to telepathically convey to her to steer clear of Laila and really any mention of our family. We’ve talked about this. Kara knows. So far, she has held up our agreement. But with her, I can never quite be sure.
***
We moved to Payson, Utah, five years ago when Kara was well along in her pregnancy with Saylor. This was a huge move for her—she had been raised in northern San Antonio, had lived there all her life except for her stint at BYU where we met. Her father had some notoriety in the Church, serving in the First Quorum of the Seventy. After we graduated, he got me a job in banking in that area—to the chagrin of my parents in Pleasant Grove. But I didn’t mind. A mission to Gainesville acclimated me to the heat, the South, the Bible Belt.
After Laila when Kara got pregnant, there was just so much … how to explain it? When Kara started to show, an older sister put a hand on Kara’s pregnant belly and said, “Bless you for your bravery, bringing another spirit here after all you’ve been through.”
Another sister, more middle aged, pulled Kara aside and asked, “Are you safe at home? Because I can connect you with resources.” Kara assured her, of course, that she was safe. Strangely, no one asked me that.
It didn’t help that, at the time, Kara’s parents were still on the Church speaking circuit and her mother was out talking about us, explaining the tender mercies the Lord had shown us in the aftermath. That meant that almost everyone had to stop us to express sympathy, even nearly a year after.
Thus, I reached out to my high school buddy who knew a guy at a credit union, and we headed to Utah. People didn’t know who we were because Kara had taken my last name, so folks never connected her to her father. And for five years, we have lived here doing what people in Utah do—Llama Fest in Spanish Fork, Fourth of July backyard fireworks, Pioneer Day parades, and the like. We know a lot of people, do Sunday dinners with my parents, and have very few friends. I teach in the young men’s, and Kara plans Relief Society activities.
But Bishop Stone must have known, and Bishop Terry knows. We have never discussed it. That is, until this Sunday, when Bishop Terry called me in to his office.
***
Allen Terry was younger than most bishops—early 30s, dark brown hair, always mixing it up with the youth in Church basketball, four kids at home under the age of 10, working from home for Nvidia. I sat awkwardly across the expansive desk while he leaned back in the office chair.
“Is this a new calling?” I said. “Because we should get my wife.”
“Nope,” said the bishop, rocking back.
“Okay,” I said, and a still, warm silence enveloped us. He just gazed at me and I glanced around the room. “So what did you want to see me about?” I asked finally.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just felt like I should ask you in here. I never miss Sunday School, but today I felt like I should.”
I sat on my hands and shifted side to side. “I’m not sure what to tell you.”
“How are things at home?”
“Uh, home, yeah,” I said. “Good. Briley is a fierce soccer player on her club team. Saylor is a little slow learning to talk so Kara is doing some early intervention stuff with him. My job is fine and Kara stays busy with the kids.”
“And your marriage. How is that?” He was still leaning back gently.
“Uh, good. I mean, we’ve been through something. You probably know from talking to our old bishop or whatever. But we’re good. We try to pick each other up, that sort of thing.”
Now he rocked forward. “Are you really good?” he said. “Cuz I grew up with this kid in Provo. When his little brother was five, he wandered away at Canyon Glen park and drowned in the river. About fifteen years later, my friend’s dad took his own life. Turns out, his wife blamed him, he blamed himself, he never got over it.”
I glanced at him, then at the floor. “We’re, uh … we’re not like that.” The silence filled the room again. I probably should have felt anxious but didn’t.
“There’s something between you two,” he said.
“Sorry, what’s that?” I said.
“You never sit next to each other in sacrament meeting. You and your wife, I mean. You’re never affectionate. There’s something there.”
“Oh,” I said, because I knew what he was talking about but hadn’t realized how obvious it was.
“Do you want to talk about that?” he asked, lacing his fingers together.
I looked at the floor, expecting the normal heat and tension to rise. It didn’t. The office was still and warm.
“Not really,” I said.
He nodded but otherwise didn’t move, just stayed quiet until he said, “I think you do. Or else I wouldn’t have felt impressed to call you in today. And I think you know that you can’t remain where you are.”
I closed my eyes, focused on my breathing. I had never spoken with anyone about my real thoughts.
“It’s already over for us,” I said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
I didn’t look at him, just stared at the sea-green carpet, felt the plush blue chair beneath my palms. Bishop Terry said nothing.
“But it’s better to stay together. For the kids. For safety too, I guess.”
Again, no response.
“Our wedding day was the greatest day of my life. Being sealed in the temple, kneeling at the altar, the mirrors for eternity, all of it. All we had to do was stay faithful and that’s what it would be like forever and ever. But you can’t shed innocent blood and be exalted. That’s what David learned after he murdered Uriah, right?”
“Mmm …” said the bishop without committing either way.
Now I looked at him. “You tell me, Mr. Judge in Israel. You judge between me and my wife. You have the keys.”
“Judge what?” he said.
“Show me the wisdom of Solomon,” I said. “Six years ago on a bright April morning the week before Easter, I awoke with a start because I had slept through the night and there was light in the room. Laila was eight weeks old. She slept, max, four hours at a stretch, and I was always the one who heard her cry, got her out of her crib to nurse, changed her diaper after, and put her back to bed. But I had slept through her nighttime feeding. I put my arm around Kara and thanked her for letting me sleep. She asked what time it was, said she was bursting and needed to nurse. Her garment top was wet because she was expressing milk. She suddenly bolted out of bed and rushed to Laila who, as I’m sure you know, was dead.”
“Mmm …” the bishop murmured again sitting very still and quiet.
I was staring at the carpet but seeing images from years ago. “What was already the tragedy of my life became a living nightmare when the medical examiner found bleeding in Laila’s brain and neck injuries consistent with violent shaking. She ruled Laila’s death a homicide. Police interrogated us together and separately for hours, Kara’s father paid for a big shot attorney, and no charges were filed because we each insisted that we had slept through the night, Laila had made no noise and never woke up in the morning. We wouldn’t testify against each other and so they couldn’t charge anyone.”
I took a deep breath and glanced at Bishop Terry who watched me with a blank expression.
“So there you go,” I said. “Judge between us.”
“What would you like me to judge?” he said passively.
“There were three people in the house and no signs of a break in. Briley was too small and short to shake her sister to death in the middle of the night. That leaves Kara and me. Unless I sleepwalked, I was in bed all night. If you ask Kara what she did, she will tell you the same. But one of us got up in the middle of the night and shook our baby to death. Shed innocent blood because nothing is more innocent than a child. Threw away our family’s sealing, cost us our exaltation since families are exalted together. There are no other possibilities. It was either Kara or me. So which is it? Who trashed our eternal family?”
I looked at him, feeling the churning anxieties of the last six years surging.
“Hmm,” he said. “Tell me something. If you really believed that, why would you have another baby?”
The question punctured some of my self-righteousness and anger. “It was Kara’s idea. She said we weren’t whole and she wasn’t whole and didn’t think we could be until we had another child.”
“But you don’t believe that,” he said.
“There’s no such thing as a replacement baby. We could have thirty kids and we’d still be missing Laila.”
“So why did you agree?”
I looked at the floor again. “Sorry to be crude, but when she puts on lingerie and cries, well . . . What else are you gonna do? You’re stuck either way.”
“Stuck?”
“Sure. We had Briley. What am I gonna do? Divorce Kara? Make Briley go between parents? Break our sealing. Marry another woman? Get sealed to someone else? Who would Briley be sealed to? None of this is her fault. But of course, our sealing is probably trash anyway.”
The bishop leaned back, put his right hand in his lap, drummed the table with his left. “You can’t really break the sealing. She has more say in that than you do. Not that that point matters much.”
We were quiet yet again, but it wasn’t so bad. I squeezed a couple of tears out, did nothing to wipe them away.
“So yeah, judge away,” I said.
“You really want me to do that?” he said. “Almost no one wants to be judged. Not for real.”
“I do,” I said. “I’d like it to be my fault. I have the temper. I was always the most frustrated by the lack of sleep. So maybe I lost my mind and can’t remember it. Pronounce judgment. Call me guilty. Excommunicate me. Let me have what I deserve. Let me grovel like David for the rest of my life.”
Bishop Terry shrugged. “Okay then. Here’s my judgment. You’re so caught up in self-pity, fear, and loathing that you can’t give place to other possibilities.”
“Like what?”
“That you and Kara are both telling the truth.”
“Impossible,” I said.
“Impossible is a believe of choice. You can choose to believe it’s possible. You can choose to believe your story and her story. You can choose to believe that Laila got an early call home and is awaiting you in the celestial kingdom and just needs your family to hang together in unity and love.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Gonna be a real bag over the head if I’m wrong and discover that on the other side.”
“How so? You’ve already damned yourself in your mind. At least my way, you’d be living with possibilities, with hope.”
I just stared at him.
“You can choose to focus less on what you lost and focus on Kara’s needs. Let’s pretend she actually did kill your daughter. She doesn’t need your ongoing punishment—she has plenty of that without you piling on. And if she didn’t? I mean, what a miss that would be on your part. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you sleepwalked or blacked out and don’t remember. Either way, walking around in stony judgmental silence while you go through the motions helps no one.”
I shook my head and half chuckled. “So it’s me. I’m the problem. That’s your judgment.”
“I didn’t say that. I said you should open your mind to the idea that you’re both telling the truth and act accordingly. I don’t know what really happened. At this point, I’m not sure it matters. What you do now, what you choose to believe … that’s what really matters.”
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I’ll think about it.”
He smiled. “How long halt ye between two opinions?” he asked, “Try picking the third.”
When we emerged from his office, Bishop Terry strode toward the Relief Society room where Sunday School was being held. Kara sat on a couch in the foyer.
“Why aren’t you in Sunday School?” I asked and sat next to her.
“I didn’t see you there,” she said. “So I went looking for you. Finally decided you must be with the bishop.” Her voice was soft, her brown eyes careful, searching.
“Do you want to go to Sunday School?” I said. “I’ll go with you.”
She glanced at the watch I had given her our second Christmas together. “Only ten minutes left. We can just sit here and get the kids when Primary lets out.”
“Okay,” I said. On the opposite wall was a painting of Jesus in red walking among the lame at the pools of Bethesda. I took her hand and held it for several minutes, as I stared at the dabs of red that made up Jesus’s clothes.
“I’m sorry,” I said at last.
“Me too,” she said.
Gordon Laws lives
in Massachusettes.
His most recent story is
“The Worm Dieth Not.”
