I stood on a wooden stool to retrieve from an upper shelf a jarrito, a little Mexican clay cup with a handle. I tried my best not to spill the steaming liquid as I carefully poured it from the scalding pan. I proudly carried it back to my father, who still sat at the desk consumed by his work. I placed the coffee next to his right hand and waited. After a few moments, he picked up the jarrito and took a sip. He didn’t rave about my coffee-making skills, but he didn’t complain, either, so I hoped I had done reasonably well.
I crawled back under the worn blanket on the bed in that room and watched him write until I fell asleep again. Several times during the night, he roused me to ask me to make him more coffee, which I gladly did. Though we spoke fewer than twenty words to one another, I’d never felt closer to my father, nor more needed as a daughter, as a person. Knowing I played a critical role in helping my father accomplish his important work gave me such a sense of belonging and fulfillment. Plus, I got to sleep in a real bed, not the chunk of foam on the floor.
The next morning, he woke me at daybreak and asked me to make more coffee. I went to the kitchen, where Rafael and Antonia were sitting at the table. Rafael glanced at me. “I hope you know how blessed you are, Anna. You are one of the celestial children. You are born of the prophet Ervil LeBaron. He is a great man who hears directly from God. I hope you appreciate that blessing and call on your life.”
I believed his words wholeheartedly. We had been taught all our lives how special we were to be Ervil’s children, to come from such a godlike man. I nodded slowly, then turned to make the coffee.
But all the while, I pondered what Rafael had said. Was I really blessed? I lived in a strange country without my mother, and with a father who acknowledged my existence only when he asked me to do his bidding.
Right now, a true blessing would be to have some of the steak and potatoes prepared for my father’s dinner, instead of the beans and mush that my siblings and I had day in and day out. It was the first time I had ever questioned whether the “blessing” of serving my father was truly enough. It felt like blasphemy, and I could hardly admit it even to myself.
Later that morning, Dad came into the kitchen where Celia, Hyrum, and I sat with Antonia’s kids. A few days earlier, Celia had been sent from Calería to live with us. We ate the atole (hot liquid cereal) Antonia made for breakfast. As we finished, he leaned over the table and looked directly at me. “Anna, how would you like to go with me on a mission trip?”
“I’d like to.” I felt important and noticed. I paused and bit my lower lip as I pondered whether to ask him a question. “But what’s a mission trip?”
His laughter rang out and filled the tiny kitchen. “It’s where we teach the gospel to the Lamanites, so they can go to the celestial level of heaven, instead of being stuck on the telestial level in the afterlife. It’s our duty to go and tell them.”
A cold, hard stare had taken over the laughter and crinkled eyes. “Go get ready. We need to leave in a few minutes.” And just like that, his laughter pealed once more.
Celia helped me brush some of the tangles out of my long, unruly blonde hair. Then she helped me braid my hair into two long plaits. “Want to see?” She carried the wooden stool from the kitchen into the bathroom so I would be tall enough to see my reflection in the dingy mirror. I turned left, then right. “Wow, I love it. Thanks!” I hugged my older sister before I changed into my best outfit —in truth, my only other outfit —a skirt with an elastic waistband and a matching blouse with a print of brightly colored flowers. I hurried back to the kitchen, so as not to keep my father waiting.
“Anna!” Celia hollered from the bedroom.
I returned quickly. “What?”
Celia held up my chanclas (flip-flops).
“Oops.” I quickly slipped them onto my feet.
My sweet sister hugged me and whispered, “Have a fun day preaching.”
“What’s preaching?”
“You’ll find out.”
I padded back to the kitchen, eager to spend the day with my father. When I got there, he was already gone. “Where is he?” I asked Antonia, who banged pots and pans around loudly, probably irritated that she’d had to dirty so many to make us breakfast.
“He went to the car. Hurry!” She swatted at the back of my thighs with a dish towel.
I jumped out of the way and hurried out the front door to find my father in the driver’s seat and Rena, the youngest of my dad’s thirteen wives, sitting on the passenger side of the front seat in his long, beige Lincoln Continental. I hadn’t realized we would have company with us. Still, I’d never had the opportunity to spend this much time with my dad. I needed to take advantage of it. I opened the back passenger door and crawled inside to sit behind Rena. Without a word, Dad started the engine and headed toward the highway. Soon after, the skies opened and started pouring rain.
Rena remained quiet during the drive, except when Dad asked her a question. I didn’t want to be a nuisance, so I didn’t speak either. Dad droned on and on, but most of his religious talk and words were way above my understanding. After all, he needed to prepare to preach or whatever God had called him to do that day. We finally pulled off the main highway into a village with one main street and smaller dirt roads crossing it. Dad parked on the main road. “We’ll have to walk from here. It’s too muddy to drive the car; we might get stuck.”
We walked down one of the dirt roads lined with small huts on either side. I tried to avoid stepping in puddles or mud, but the rain was really coming down, and I had a difficult time keeping up in my chanclas. Dad stopped in front of one hut that had only plywood for walls. He went into it, and Rena and I followed. We spent what seemed like hours in that house. I tried to sit still on the end of an old couch as I listened to Dad drone on and on in Spanish about “the civil law of God,” or whatever he was preaching about to this poor, captive audience. I slowly realized that going on a mission trip was not the glamorous event I’d imagined. But I did get to spend the day with my father and Rena —away from Antonia and her resentful glares. And I didn’t have to clean or sell anything that entire day. However boring, it offered a welcome respite.
Without warning, Dad finished talking. When he bowed his head, so did everyone else in the room. I bowed mine, too, though I couldn’t help but squint my eyes and take in the scene. Dad’s bushy eyebrows worked up and down as he practically preached another sermon during that long prayer. Finally he stood, shook hands with all of the adults in the room, and we left.
I felt so thankful to be out of that house and away from the boredom of listening to the adults. The rain had stopped, and the air smelled of damp earth. I breathed in deeply and closed my eyes for an instant. We headed back down the narrow road on the long walk back to the main street where Dad had parked the Lincoln.
I ran ahead to climb in.
“Anna, stop!” My dad’s voice boomed as loud as thunder behind me.
I did as he said. In fact, I stood so still I began to shake, though I don’t know if that was from fear, from holding my body rigid, or from the chill of being damp. He reached my side in seconds and grasped my shoulder, none too gently. “What have you done?”