Emma's Crown by Makoto Hunter

“This affliction will be to you a crown of life,”
Says John Greene,
Marshall of Nauvoo.
Emma stops sobbing for long enough
To look at Greene
Quick and
Hard and
Angry.
“My husband was my crown,”
She says.
“I am a widow and my children orphans.”
The words grind together,
And Greene shrinks in shame,
Leaving Emma alone as she sobs,
“Why, O God, am I thus deserted?”

“We announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith the Prophet,”
Reads Emma’s new copy of the Commandments, of
The Doctrine and Covenants.

“We announce,” she reads aloud,
And her fingers clench the pages
As the tears well in her eyes.
“To seal the testimony of this book and the Book of Mormon.”
She just about spits the words.
“Don’t they know these books speak for themselves?”

“What was there to seal,”
She asks,
“That was not already sealed?”
By the blood of Mormon?
By the word of Christ?
By the Spirit of God?
She squeezes her eyes shut against the words
As if maybe Joseph might not be dead
If the book just would not say so.
“How could they?” she asks herself.
How could they elevate this to scripture?
Who are they to speak for God?
To imply he needed to die?
“Only Joseph spoke for God.
Joseph said he would return to me.”

Emma snaps shut her Doctrine and Covenants.
“Let the Brighamites put words in God’s mouth,”
She says.
“Let Brigham march the Saints to hell.”

“It is the Lord’s pattern,”
So say the Reorganizers,
And Emma can see their eyes drifting to
The other side of the room,
To where Joseph III sits.
“Joseph was the son of Israel,”
Says one.
“Enos was the son of Jacob,”
Says another.
“Alma the son of Alma—”

“I have read the scriptures,”
Emma says.
The Reorganizers fall quiet,
Waiting for her answer.

Emma protests.
“He’s so young.”
But the Reorganizers cut her off.
“So was his father,”
One says.
“When he saw—”
“Moroni.” “The Lord.”
They speak over each other,
And Emma’s body tenses,
And her eyes harden.

“His father died in order to protect you,”
She says,
“And now you want me
To give you my son?”
Her voice is
Stern and
Bitter and
Hot with
Fear and
Knowledge and
Motherhood.

The Reorganizers
Are silent.
They have no answer.

Emma looks at the Reorganizers again.
She is tense but
Quaking.
Her face gradually softens,
And she looks again to Joseph,
At her son Joseph.

She wonders
What her Joseph would have said.

She says,
“If God wants him to do anything in your church,
God will make it known.”

It was up to God, not men.
Not them.

“What about the revelation,”
Asks young Joseph,
Now not so young,
Now prophet-president,
Now seer and revelator,
And she feels herself bristle
At the weight of that
Word,
Revelation.

“What about the revelation on Polygamy?”
Young Joseph asks her.

“There was no revelation,”
Emma says,
“On either polygamy, or spiritual wives.”
And she bites the inside of her cheek
At the unbidden memory of
Days spent in purgatory,
Her husband insisting on the impossible,
Pleading for the unimaginable.

“Did he not hold marital relation,”
Young Joseph asks,
“With women other than yourself?”
Joseph asks with the confidence of one who
Knows the answer:
No.
For Emma has told him so
Many times before.

Inside, Emma is uneasy.
This is not a conversation to have
With Joseph
About Joseph.
But outside, she is collected,
Calm,
Cool.

“He did not have improper relations
With any woman that
Ever came to
My knowledge,”
Emma insists.

In life, polygamy destroyed Joseph once.
Emma will not let it destroy him again.

“Joseph?”
Emma calls out.
Her son rushes to her side,
But it is not the living prophet
Whom Emma sees.

“Mother?”
Young Joseph says.
“Mother, what is it?”

“Joseph?”
Emma can feel her body growing colder.
Or is she imagining it?
It has been so long
Since she saw Joseph’s face.

Young Joseph holds her hand tightly.
Her son,
Their son,
She is so proud of their son.
Would Joseph be proud of him
Too?
Even though they never went west,
Did not feel safe with Brigham,
Could not stomach the celestial marriage,
Could not bear to abandon Nauvoo
Could never dream of leaving Lucy.

Lucy.
Lucy is dead and buried now,
Her bones with
Her sons’ bones,
To rise together in the Resurrection.

“Joseph.”
Emma can see his face clearly now,
His blue eyes
Gentle smile
Now his torso
Still with the stomach he got in Nauvoo,

And suddenly the bed
Walls
Ceiling
House
Young Joseph’s hand in hers
Are gone,
And in front of Emma
Just stands

Joseph.

Emma stares at Joseph.

“Emma,”
He says to her.
“I am sorry I did not return to you.”
He looks
Contrite
Elated
Sobered
Overjoyed
He looks torn in two,
Two Josephs,
One wishing he could hide from her,
One wishing he might never leave her.

It is Joseph.

Emma feels herself move closer to him.
She is not really walking,
But she doesn’t know how else
To understand the experience.
And she stands very close to him,
And she cups his face in her hands,
And she begins to smile,
Because he is her Joseph,
Because she is with her Joseph again,
Because she knew, she always knew,
No matter how many
John Greenes or
Brighamites or
Reorganizers said otherwise,
She knew God had blessed her enough
By putting Joseph in her life.

“Joseph,”
She says,
And her voice breaks,
And somehow she is crying,
And somehow her bodiless being tenses,
And somehow she wishes it was instead
Joseph holding her,
And though she clings to him,
She looks down
Away
Ashamed

And before Joseph can ask
Why,
Emma tells him,
“I lied about you,”
Emma says,
Shaking her head
As the years flood back.
“I only wanted to
Protect you,
Protect our son,”
She says,
And she starts to shrink
Away
Because how could he love her
Knowing what she did?

The Church was to
Mend and reunite a fractured reality,
Not schism and splinter the family of God.

The apostles were to be new prophets,
Upon the rock of Brigham, as it had been on Peter,
A kingdom of priests, not just one family’s kingdom.

Emma remembered the temple rites,
But the Reorganizers quietly ignored her.

Emma still had the papyri that thrilled Joseph,
But Nauvoo treated them as curiosities, not scripture.

“Your wives,”
Emma says,
And she lets go of Joseph,
And steps away from him,
And can’t look at him,
And shakes her head at him,
“Your wives are here,
Or will be here,
Or always were here.”
Tears pour from her eyes.
“I can’t—”
She doesn’t have the words.
“I can’t—”
She takes another step back.
“Your work, Joseph,
Your Church,”
She says.
“I—”
Ruined
Scattered
Schismed
It is her fault,
Emma thinks,
Her fault there are two churches
Three churches
Ten churches
No endowment in Nauvoo,
No sealings to make welding links,
She failed,
She faltered,
Fallen prophet,
Fallen priestess,
Disloyal,
Is what she thinks to herself
As she blames herself.

“Emma.”

She looks up, and
Joseph is very close to her now,
And his eyes fill her eyes,
And she cannot help but
Reach to cup his face again.
It has been so long.

“Emma,”
Joseph says.
He smiles at her,
And she wants to
Smile back.
Oh how she loves his smile.

“Thank you for caring for my mother,”
Joseph says.
“Thank you for raising our children,”
He says.
“I am so proud of our Joseph.
He is a prophet of peace,
With a message of peace.
His lineage will build
A temple in Independence.”

And Emma’s heart is warm,
And her bosom burns,
And she realizes her husband is
Testifying.
Prophesying.

“I’m sorry, Emma.”

Apologizing.

“I should have told you first,
Asked you first.
I loved you first,
You should have known first.”

Emma feels Joseph place
One gentle hand on her face.
“I can’t face them,” Emma says.
“Your family—
I mean
Our family—
Your—”

Joseph’s smile is pained.
He says,
“And that is not your fault.
It is mine.
I am sorry.”

“Your Church,”
Emma says.
“Your Church,
The Church it
Your Church is gone,
There are now two”
Three
Ten
More
A fractured reality.
“It is my fault.”

“Not my Church,”
Joseph says.
“It is Christ’s Church.
There is nothing you need to apologize for,
Emma.
He needed Brigham in Utah.
He needed you in Nauvoo.
Thank you.”

And Emma feels the
Heart and
Warmth and
Sincerity
In Joseph’s words.

They cleave to
Each other
A long time,
And Emma
Can smile again.

Emma Smith, my daughter;
…
Thou art an elect lady, whom I have called.
…
And verily, verily, I say unto you,
That this is my voice unto all.

(D&C 25:1, 3, 16)

* * * * *

Makoto Hunter is a graduate of Brigham Young University (BA History 2022) and an incoming student in the University of California–Santa Barbara’s MA/PhD program for American history and religion. Though her work is predominantly historical, she is interested in the humanities broadly, including Mormon letters. She has presented academic work at several conference venues including the 2022 Transnational Asia Conference at Salt Lake Community College and the 2022 Mormon History Association conference. Makoto has also written histories oriented toward public audiences for Intermountain Histories, a digital history project of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, including her series “Mapping the Polygamy Underground.” Beyond Mormon history, Makoto also studies the American West, twentieth-century Japan, and queerness in East Asian popular culture.