“Yes, but God will bless us if we keep our covenants, even when we’re the injured party,” Kurt said.
Did he have any idea of the implication of what he was saying? How could he not be thinking about me and Ben Tookey?
“Maybe that’s true, but God blesses us all the time, no matter what we do. He loves us, and He wants us to be happy.”
“Happiness is not the same as doing whatever we want,” said Kurt.
It was so hurtful, I felt a pain in my chest and couldn’t speak for a long moment. “She’s from a polygamous family,” I blurted out.
Kurt paled visibly. “She’s what?”
“Not the FLDS,” I explained. “I guess they’re an independent group. Kenneth said that her father was excommunicated, but it sounds like the children and the wives are still active members of the Mormon church.” Sort of.
Kurt muttered something to himself that I decided I didn’t want to ask him to repeat.
“He wants us to go meet her for dinner in Salt Lake City, if we can find an evening that works.”
Kurt looked away. “Fine. I can do that.”
Was that all he had to say?
He stood up. “Thanks for the lovely dinner. It was delicious.”
He’d barely touched it, but he was scraping the plate and putting it in the dishwasher before I said anything else.
“I’m going to spend some time reading scriptures and praying in my office,” he added as he walked out of the kitchen.
I suspected he’d be praying for Kenneth and Naomi. And me, too.
Fine, let him. God wasn’t going to change who I was. That was a fundamental principle of Mormonism that I loved. We all had free agency. It was the reason that Christ had made the Atonement, so we could all choose and learn from our mistakes. I didn’t know if Kenneth was making a mistake or not, but I was going to honor his choices and not try to pray them away.
I cleaned up the kitchen, packaging the leftovers into containers for Kurt to take to work with him the rest of the week. He often forgot to eat if I didn’t pack him a lunch. Despite all our problems since November, I’d packed him a lunch every day. It was easier to do things like that, and not just because it was a habit. It was a concrete expression of love that didn’t imply I agreed with him in any way. If only Kurt could figure out something equivalent to do for Kenneth.
An hour later I passed by his office on the way to putting away my coat and stopped by the door. The sound of weeping was clear, even through the door.
My heart clenched and I thought about going inside to comfort him. I could hold him, at the very least, and tell him that I loved him. If I were a better, more Christ-like person, I would have done it. I wouldn’t have thought about my own pride or giving him the false impression I was admitting I was wrong. I would have cared only about showing my husband that I loved him.
I went to bed alone instead, and thought about how long an eternal marriage could really be. Forever. Eternity. That’s how long Kurt and I were supposed to be bound together. And I had always, through every disagreement we’d had before, felt comforted by this idea, buoyed by the thought that we would work everything out eventually. But things had changed.
We should have been celebrating our son’s decision to marry, but at the moment I wondered if our own marriage would survive. And if I wanted it to. Forever was a long time to be sealed to someone you thought was profoundly, deeply wrong about the nature of God, and about marriage itself.
Chapter 3
Kurt and I didn’t talk about Kenneth and Naomi again except to confirm the details of our dinner two Thursdays later. Kurt came home from work early to pick me up and drive his truck north to Salt Lake City. I was dressed in a nice maroon suit I’d last worn to Adam’s wedding five years ago. Kurt was wearing one of his two black suits and a pink tie I suspect he did not know might look like subtle support of the LGBTQ community.
“We need to be nice,” I said after we were on the freeway. I wished conversation were easier.
“I know that,” Kurt said. “I love Kenneth, you know. Even if I don’t approve of his choice to resign his church membership.”
“Can you let that go for the moment?” I asked testily.
Kurt let out a breath, as if he was trying. “Do you think he’s marrying a girl from a polygamous family just to tweak us?”
That’s what Kurt thought of Kenneth? “Of course he’s not,” I said immediately. Then after some thought, I added, “Besides, we’re all basically from polygamous families, if you go back far enough in church history.”
“That’s not true,” Kurt retorted. “Only twenty percent of Mormons lived a polygamous life even back in the late 1800s.”