Nephi 2:27

By Katie Henry

            Rachel hadn’t expected him to have such cold hands.

            She’d expected that he would have warm hands, like her mother’s, hands that were warmed and weathered by the sun and lifting, and building. But his hands were like a dead fish, clammy and uncomfortable, and for a brief second, she wanted to pull away. She closed her eyes, and willed herself to stop her evil thoughts.

            She looked up from his hands, his large beefy fingers encircling her cupped, shaking hands, and ventured a small glance. His attention was on the Prophet, who was flipping his book to a new section in the ceremony.

            Maybe he was nervous. No, he’d done this eight times before, she thought, glancing at the line of women in the front row. At this point, marriage was as simple as making butter. Maybe simpler, there was a lot less upper body strength required.

The Prophet wheezed, his spindly body hunched over. He straightened and read from the Book.

            “Warren Stanger, do you take Rachel Hase as your wife in Celestial Marriage, for now and all eternity?”

            Here he looked at her, and why, why did he have to have the same exact eyes? He was smiling at her with the same smile, all gums and small, perfect teeth, and she smiled weakly back.

            “I do,” he said, and her insides convulsed, because her part was next, and she wondered, could she just nod? Would the Prophet and God accept just a nod? She wasn’t expected to speak much otherwise, but here of all places she was expected to speak, in front of her mother, her father, her new sister-wives. Rachel hadn’t spoken to a man directly for months, unless you counted Adam, which she didn’t, because Adam was only nineteen and kicked out of the church besides that.

            She looked at her mother, who was in the second row, holding Ruth. At four, Ruth was too big to be carried, but she rested comfortably on her mother’s swollen, pregnant stomach. Rachel’s mother was staring at her with glassy eyes, her mouth a soft, thin smile. She had been reluctant to give Rachel up so soon, at fourteen, but since Lilah—things had changed.

            “Rachel.”

            The Prophet was looking at her with an almost grandfatherly kindness. Rachel swallowed, but could not smile.

            Rachel Hase, do you take Warren Stanger as your husband, and do you accept your place as his ninth wife, in the eyes of God, for eternity?”

            Rachel suddenly felt as though the peanut butter was stuck in her throat. She sucked in air hard, and stifled a cough. Warren’s smile was fading, and he exchanged looks with the Prophet, raised eyebrows asking, Is this one going to be a problem, too? Rachel cleared her throat. She would not be a burden, not be a problem. Her mouth contorted into a smile.

            “I do,” she said, and closed her eyes so she would not have to see his.

            She felt a frail hand on hers, and the Prophet’s voice saying, “By the law of Sarah, I seal you into marriage.”

            She tensed, her eyes still shut, as she felt the sweep of her husband’s lips against hers.

***

            If there was one sentence that Rachel absolutely never wanted to hear again, it was, “You’re such a lucky girl!”

            “To be marrying the deacon of Bountiful, at your age,” said Elma Hale, admiring Rachel’s long-sleeved wedding dress after the ceremony. “And ninth! That’s a lucky number.”

            “Too many for that little house,” said Lucy Frost, cradling her newest baby. “And after she starts having children…the Deacon’s house is full to bursting as it is.”

            “With nine? That’s nothing, the Prophet Joseph Smith had twenty, and he got along. Prophet Young had no less than 50, and no child of his starved.”

            “Oh, those were the old days, Elma. The Gentiles are always knocking at the gate, and if you ask me, no man should have more than three—”

            “Well, no one did ask you, Lucy Frost—”

            As the two women continued to bicker about the old Latter Day Saint Prophets and their pious wives, Rachel grabbed her chance and slipped away. Dodging little girls with long braided hair and older men with a wife on each arm, she eased her way around the corner of the temple, and out of sight.

            From the back porch of the temple, she could see everything. She could see the Deacon’s house, shining with a new coat of paint, the lumber yard where her father worked, and the fence. The fence her father had helped build, all barbed wire and cold, sharp edges. He said that it was more than her height by far, and looked like God himself had made it, the way it stretched on forever, and kept the evil at bay.

            If Rachel squinted, she could see the highway, and tiny, brightly colored cars riding its curves, traveling from Godknowswhat to Godknowswhere, as her mother would put it. She knew that they were all Gentiles, each and every one of those people on the highway, and that she shouldn’t envy their cars. A red car was nothing, she reasoned, to being lifted up to join the Prophets in heaven. And it was not as if she had never seen a car. The Prophet had arrived at Bountiful in a dark limousine, and the men frequently patrolled Bountiful’s limits in their worn pickup trucks. But there was something about those Gentile cars, speeding past her into the hot, shimmery nowhere, that made her climb onto  the back porch of the temple, her eyes straining to see what was beyond the barbed-wire fence.

            “You’ll fall,” said a small voice below her, and Rachel swung around, and then down onto the ground.

            “And if you fall, then the Devil gets you,” continued Ruth, scuffing the ground with her patent-leather shoe.

            “That’s a different kind of ‘fall’, Ruthie,” Rachel said, sitting back down on the steps. “It’s not the same as tripping.”

            Ruth appeared not to appreciate the difference. “Mama’s looking for you,” she said, settling herself in Rachel’s lap. “She’s been looking all, all over.”

            “Why?”

            Ruth looked up and her face crumpled. “She said I had to say goodbye, but you’re still here. Don’t leave!” She buried her face in Rachel’s shoulder, and thrust her tiny arms around her sister’s waist.

            “Ruthie, I’m not leaving,” Rachel said, prying herself from the iron grip.

            “You’re not leaving?”

            “No. Well, yes, but…” Rachel paused. She had the feeling that she had been bound into a new life, but was it really leaving?

            “I won’t be in the house with you. I won’t still sleep in the same room. But I won’t be gone.”

            Ruth looked up, tear tracks streaking her freckled cheeks. “Not like Lilah?”

            “You better not let Mama hear you saying that name,” Rachel said as she scooped Ruth up. “But no, not like Lilah.”

            As she rocked Ruth back and forth, one hand stroking her messy blond curls, she remembered one night when she was nine, cradling her doll in her arms.

            “How quickly,” said Mother Anne, another of her father’s wives, “a girl’s last doll is set aside for her first baby.”

            Rachel had stiffened for a moment, then resumed to mothering her doll. Marriage and babies were many years away, so many she could barely imagine it.

            And suddenly, with a Prophet’s supreme decision and a quick ceremony, everything was in front on her, presented with smiles and lace dresses that she couldn’t refuse. Her own baby, she realized, could be only a year away. And the first one, she knew from her years at her father’s wives bedsides, the first one was always the hardest.

            Ruth looked up at her, blue eyes shining like barbed wire, like bright cars in the sun, and pointed over her shoulder.

            “Hello, Ruthie,” said a voice behind Rachel, and she turned. “That’s a very pretty dress you’ve got there,” continued Joseph Stanger. Ruthie buried her head in Rachel’s shoulder, suddenly shy. Joseph flicked his dark eyes to Rachel.

            “My father’s been looking for you,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He’s got parishioner business to deal with, so you’ll come home with me and get settled.”

            Ruth extracted her head from her sister’s white gossamer shoulder. “But she has to say goodbye! She has to say goodbye to me, and Simon, and Naomi, and Daniel, and Jacob, and the baby in Mama’s tummy.”

            Joseph flashed her a smile and stepped forward. “Well, it’s not as if she’s gone forever, little lady,” he said, and fingered Ruth’s blond braid.

            Rachel stiffened and set Ruth down. “Go to Mama,” she said, and watched longingly as Ruth dashed off into the courtyard. She turned back to Joseph, but kept her eyes on the ground.

            He grasped her elbow. “Follow me, sister.”

***

            The pickup truck didn’t feel like she thought it would. When she had seen those bright blazing cars, they looked like they moved so smoothly, like a knife into butter. The pickup truck stalled and stopped short frequently, heightening her growing nausea.

            Joseph had dark sunglasses on, though Rachel wasn’t looking at his eyes. She stared at her lap and her twisting, wringing hands, as if staring through the cloth might make her blend into it.

            “Rachel,” he said, and she cringed.

            “Rachel,” he said, and she looked up, startled. Putting down her basket of raspberries, she dusted off her dress and started to get up.

            “Don’t, Rachel. I’ll sit down.” He did, and she was confused. Her father barely remembered her name, but the Deacon’s oldest son did?

            “The ceremony was nice, wasn’t it?” He smacked his gum.

            He reached into her basket and took out a handful of raspberries. “This is a nice part of the woods, isn’t it?” He glanced up. “Real shady.”

            Rachel nodded, not knowing what else to do. He popped the raspberries in his mouth.

            “You’ll like the house,” Joseph continued, rounding a turn. “You’ll have a room all for yourself, since Lydia got married last month.”

            “Sure, my house is nice,” he said, wiping his mouth. “But too many wives and kids around.” He dropped a raspberry on his shirt, and a red stain spread.

            “When you get back to your house, put some seltzer water on the stain,” Rachel said quickly, the words spilling out faster than she’d meant. “It’ll come out.”

            He grinned at her, his dark eyes sparkling. “You’ll make a good little wife someday.”

            “So Deborah’s the seventh wife, and then there’s Alice. She’s seventeen, that’s pretty close to you.”

            “How old are you, anyway?” he asked.

            “Twelve, thirteen next month.” She knew he had to be at least eighteen, maybe older.

            “Won’t be long for you, then.” He was right, of course. Boys had to work for many years until they were old enough to marry, and take wives. It made sense to Rachel, because if everyone married young, men could never have more than three wives, and that meant they wouldn’t go to heaven.

            “Alice will show you how to run things, you’ll stick with her for the first few months.”

            “You know,” Joseph said, then paused. “A lot of girls worry about marriage.”

            Rachel believed him. Her older sister Lilah was fifteen, and wouldn’t even discuss it. But all she said was “Oh.”

            “Most girls have someone check that they’ll be good wives.” He looked at her. “You know, have them show them things.”

            She wanted to say that her mother had never told her that, but the words never made it out.

            The pickup truck rattled as it made it over a bump in the dirt path, and Rachel squeaked.

            “Easy, now,” said Joseph, adjusting his seatbelt.

            “Easy, now,” he said as she whimpered. “Shh, Shh…”

            She wanted to scream, wanted to cry out, but all she could do was whimper like a helpless puppy as his hands were on her waist, then pawing at her growing chest, and then down and down and she knew it wasn’t right, he shouldn’t, shouldn’t, and she kicked out with a cry.

            “Hush up,” he said, and his hands were on her wrists, his muscles pressing into her soft skin and she twisted and his hold got tighter, bolts of pain shot up through up through her arms. He let go of one wrist and trapped her leg, pressing his knee down, and there was nothing but light shining down through the oaks and his hot breath, and her throat was numb, her body paralyzed as he pawed through the layers of her blue dress, through her legs, and she began to sob because it might go on forever.

            “Joseph!” An older woman was at the car window. “Got her back in one piece, good boy.”

            “Joseph!”

            His hands stopped.

            “Joseph, where are you? Mama wants you!”

            He glanced down at her, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks, leaves tangled up in her golden hair, staring back up at him.

            He got to his knees and dusted off his stained and dirty shirt. He gave her one last look, and Rachel knew what it meant. He rose and strode away from the clearing, calling to Lydia that he was coming.

            Once his tall frame was out of sight, Rachel let out a choked sob, and pulled her knees to her chin. Once the pounding in her chest had settled to an arrhythmic, frightened patter, she looked at her wrists. Both had identical red rings encircling them like manacles, bruising to purple where his thumb had dug into her vein.

            She would wash her face, her arms. She would say that she had tripped and fallen. And she would stay silent.

            Sister Martha, the Deacon’s first wife, helped her down from the truck. She was a stout woman who was known around Bountiful as the mother of twelve children, eight of them boys, and the matriarch of the Deacon’s household.

            Sister Martha hoisted her basket of laundry onto her hips again, and addressed Rachel. “A couple of my boys have gone to your father’s house now, to collect your things. Let’s get you settled, sister wife.”

            Her fingers encircled Rachel’s wrist, and Rachel could feel the manacles burning again.

***

            The room was pleasant, clean. It was smaller than her room at home, but it was hers and hers alone. It still felt warm, still had the feel of the girl who had once lived here.

            Rachel’s ear was caught by a shriek and she raced to the window and peered out at the scene below in the neighboring front yard. Two boys and one little girl were jumping on their trampolines, bouncing themselves higher and higher on one of the only modern toys Bountiful children had.

            “Competitive sports and fancy toys pit brother against brother,” said the Deacon in a fuzzy memory of one hot, sticky sermon, “And that is not out way.”

            Rachel could remember being young enough to jump on the trampoline. She could remember the flash of adrenaline in her stomach, the wind whipping her braids, and looking down at her small world from above, and when the Deacon talked of virtuous men and women ascending to heaven, she would think of the trampoline.

            “How high do you think we can jump?” Lilah asked, sitting down on the trampoline.

            “I don’t know,” said Rachel, continuing to bounce lightly. “Why?”

            “Maybe if we jumped really high, we could jump all the way over the fence.”

            Rachel gasped and plopped down next to her sister. “We can’t do that, Lilah. Then we’d be on the wrong side, and the Gentiles would take us away.”

            “But what’s on the other side? Don’t you want to know?”

            Rachel shook her head. “The Deacon says sin is on the other side. And he’s never wrong, ever.”

            Lilah casually undid her long strawberry blonde braid. “Maybe he could be, just once.”

            Another shriek and Rachel was suddenly aware of her heavy feet sinking into the floor. The little girl had fallen painfully on her arm. She sniffled and turned away from the boys so they wouldn’t have to see a female face without a smile. The younger boy was instantly at her side, rubbing her arm and saying something that made her giggle, and the pink return to her cheeks.

            “Adam? Why Adam?”

            Lilah shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything, I guess.”

            Rachel handed Lilah another soapy dish to dry. “He has nice eyes,” she conceded. “But he’s too young.”

            “He’s eighteen!”

            “Exactly. No boy gets a wife until he’s at least twenty-five.”

            Lilah dropped the plate with a clatter. “So why are they trying to marry me to some bald old man at sixteen. How is that fair?”

            Squirting some soap onto a dirty plate, Rachel considered the question. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “You should pray on it, maybe the Prophet would tell you.”

            “I’m sick of praying,” Lilah said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I’m sick of old men. I want Adam.” She squared her shoulders. “And I’m going to be with him no matter what.”

            Rachel suddenly wanted Brother Ezekiel Scott’s camera, his bulky monster of a camera, to capture the moment between the little girl and boy. In five years, she knew, that boy and girl would no longer be playing together. They would be forbidden to even look at one another. For them, there would be no more trampolines. Housework, truck driving, cutting bread and cutting wood would occupy their lives, and they would both be firmly planted on the ground.

            It was four months after Adam disappeared with Lilah before Rachel saw him again. She was collecting eggs from the storage house near the fence when she heard a rustling in the bushes. She couldn’t help screaming.

            “Oh, jeez Rachel, please don’t scream,” said Adam, coming out of the bushes. “Shh, or they’ll hear you, and you know what’ll happen then.” He straightened up and Rachel could see that he was wearing Gentile clothing, a shirt without long sleeves and pants made out of funny blue cloth.

            “Where’s Lilah?” Rachel demanded, clutching her basket of eggs closer.

            Adam grinned. “She’s fine. She’s happy.” He crouched down to her level. “We got help in town, and Lilah’s not an adult out there, so we’re both staying with these two really nice people who help kids in trouble, and Lilah’s going to school—she’s a little behind, hasn’t gone in five years—and she wanted me to come and see you.”

            He dug a brightly wrapped thing from his pocket. “Here, try it.”

            “What is it?”

            “It’s called a Snickers bar, it’s really good. Lilah loves them.” He unwrapped the end and broke off a piece. She took it and cautiously chewed. She gagged. It was so sweet, sweeter than maple syrup, sweeter than lemonade.

            “I guess it takes some getting used to. Listen, Rachel.” He pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of his pants. “Lilah wanted me to give you this. It’s the address of the place where we’re staying, and the phone number. And here’s twenty dollars, just in case—”

            Rachel recoiled. “I’m not leaving Bountiful! I’d never—”

            “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said. “You have a choice. Everyone here has a choice. I cut a hole in the fence—”he pulled back the bushes, revealing a gaping chasm. “And you just follow the highway down that way for maybe two miles and you’re in town and—”

            ‘You better go, Adam,” Rachel said. “They’ll wonder where I went.”

            And though she had no reason to, she stuck the paper and the money in the pocket of her coat.

            Rachel stared at the little girl, bright-eyed again, jumping on the trampoline. In eight years, the little girl who would still be a little girl would wear a wedding dress just like Rachel’s, and find her hand placed in a man’s. She might even be Rachel’s sister-wife.

            Rachel drew the curtains.

***

It was late before he came. All the children had been tucked into bed and the house was silent except for the clatter of dishes as Sister Hazel and Sister Alice finished up the last of the dinner dishes.

            Rachel had been sent to his room by Sister Martha. She had protested, at first.

“It’s a wedding night,” Sister Martha had replied. “Didn’t your mother tell you what was going to happen? Well, never mind that, he’ll want you in his room.” She fastened the top clasp of Rachel’s nightgown. Her expression softened. “It hurts a little the first time, but it’s best to get it over with. He’s a good man,” she said forcibly. “A very good man. You couldn’t have done better.”

            As Rachel sat perched on the end of his king-sized bed, she had never felt lonelier. Every night of her life had been spent in a small bed curled up with at least one sister, the sound of Naomi’s soft breathing and Ruth’s muffled sleep-talking part of her nightly rhythm. His bed felt cold and too big, and her life felt smaller, all of a sudden.

            She heard men’s footsteps on the stairs, and tensed. Her husband said goodnight to his sons, heard Joseph’s quiet laughter, and the doorknob turned.

            Warren looked older than he had in the temple, the dim candlelight highlighting every wrinkle and crease. He smiled, and Rachel saw crow’s feet.

            “You look beautiful,” he said, and closed the door.

            “Thank you, sir,” she whispered, as he settled himself on the bed next to her.

            He laughed, and fingered the end of her braid. “It’s not sir anymore, Rachel, it’s Warren. Would you unbraid your hair for me, please?”

            Rachel shivered. Girls unbraided their hair only to sleep. She untied the leather tie with shaking hands, and ran her fingers through her blonde hair, turned wavy by years worn in braids.

            “Beautiful,” he said again. “A woman’s crowning glory is her hair.”

            Warren blew out the candle, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Rachel could hear a belt fall to the floor, felt him step out of his pants and return to the bed only in his shirt. Rachel closed her eyes. She would not move, she would not speak, she would not cry. She began a metronome, thinking It can’t last long, it can’t last long as he positioned himself over her, began kissing her neck softly, and shifted her white nightgown above her hips.

            She felt a sudden lightning stab of pain, and whimpered plaintively. “Shh…Shh..” he said, pulling her trembling wrists away from her chest and pushing them down to the comforter. “Easy, girl, it’ll be alright.”

            Rachel wrenched her eyes open and stared into the dark eyes she had seen before, leering over her as she lay like a slab of meat, ready for whatever he chose to give her. Something inside of her, something cold and fragile in the middle of her chest, had snapped, and she looked Warren Stanger in the eye. No, no, no, no—she could not be used any longer, she would not sit passively by as others pawed at her, took from her, it did not have to be this way—no, no, no, no—she was moving her lips, forming the word, but the breath would not come as he pinned her wrists down, and she could feel the manacle bruises burning again—no, no, no, no—and the coldness snapped and the breath came flooding through her lungs, her throat, and her hands were balled, bracing against his weight and Rachel Hase was screaming “No! No!”, and screaming No even as he forced one hand over her mouth, biting the word into his skin.

            His hand on her wrist got tighter and he was saying something she could no longer hear over the sound of No in her head. She had always though that the word would sound so sour, so bitter, but it was sharp and triumphant and she began to punctuate each muffled No with a kick. Warren hissed and fell back as one particularly well-placed kick hit its mark, and she was ready. Rachel sprang from the bed and Warren’s writhing form and dashed to the still open door.

            Her coat off the hanger by the door, one arm in but no shoes at all, at least it was a warm night, and Rachel was running down the stairs to fast to be scared. Lilah had always been the fast one, Lilah had always won all the races, but the address and paper money burned in Rachel’s pocket and she was out the back door before she heard Warren’s weak plea for help.

            She dashed behind the house, shivering, the wind blowing her loose hair everywhere. They would be out soon, there weren’t many stairs and she steadied her legs because she hadn’t though quite this far, and she’d never make it on foot. Something by the corner of the house glinted in the moonlight, and Rachel ran to it. It was a bike, a shining red bike that was probably belonged to the boy’s, but Rachel reasoned that she needed it more, and ran with it into the looming, dark forest as she heard footsteps on the front stairs.

            They would be looking for her at the main gate, maybe at her parents’ house, but all they would find there were other little blonde girls who would work just as well for their purposes.

            She rode through the forest’s uneven ground, past the river and the oak trees and a shady clearing by a raspberry bush, her breath coming in triumphant heaves, her mouth forming the word No over and over as she pushed her bike through the hole in the fence. The jagged barbed wire cut through her dress into her skin, but she knew that the blood would clot and the stain would fade. With a final shove, she was out of her world an onto the highway.

            There were no cars speeding past her. She was alone on a dark expanse of the unknown, her tangled hair loose, her fingers trembling on the handlebars and the throbbing in her wrists beginning to fade. She could no longer feel her feet but knew that she was still moving, and she rode with her back to the world and the word No on her lips.