The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(8)

I called Samuel downstairs, and he and I talked while we ate. Samuel wasn’t in gospel doctrine class, which is for adults, but he knew Brother Rhodes from his testimonies. Testimony meeting came once a month. It could be dangerous, and Kurt had to sit on the edge of his seat, ready to interrupt if someone went too far astray.

“Is he going off on the Mountain Meadows Massacre again?” asked Samuel.

“No,” I said.

“Must be polygamy, then,” said Samuel.

“You know, we should all thank Brother Rhodes. He works as a wonderful inoculation against anything anti-Mormons might say about the church. No literature you read on your mission will compare to the real facts as he offers them, completely unvarnished.”

“Yeah, but I think a lot of people just turn a blind eye to the problems in the church.”

Samuel might get flak in church for expressing these views, but at home I didn’t mind questions. I believe strongly that God wants us to learn and make our own decisions about our lives.

“Turning a blind eye can be dangerous,” I said. I was thinking of Carrie and Jared Helm. It had been three days since Jared showed up on the doorstep, and so far, we’d learned nothing more about where Carrie had gone. Jared had taken several days off work, but how long that could continue, I didn’t know. He would have to find at least part-time care for Kelly, who was only in half-day kindergarten.

“You know, Mom, I worried a little bit when Dad was called as bishop.”

“I worried, too,” I said.

“No, I worried about you. I thought you might go to another ward or something like Brother Rhodes.” Samuel played with the curl over his left ear. He had lighter brown hair than Kurt and my other boys, but in every other way looked like his father’s son. The same height—six foot—and the same rugged build with wide shoulders and chest. The same narrow, long face and thick nose. But in other ways, I knew he was mine.

“I don’t have a problem with your father as bishop, you know,” I said. None of the other boys would have said something like this, and even if it made me a little uncomfortable, I didn’t want to cut him off. “I would have thought you saw enough of our relationship to know I would support him in whatever he did.”

“I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to put him in a position where he had to tell you that you were wrong publicly.”

“You mean, unlike all of the times when he has already done that?” I asked, smiling, thinking about how we had argued in front of the kids over politics. Kurt had voted for both Bushes. I had voted for Clinton and Obama and even for John Kerry. And at one point, Kurt had tried to tell me that my cooking wasn’t good for his cholesterol, which I hadn’t appreciated at all.

“It would be different with him as the bishop,” said Samuel. “If he had to tell you that you were wrong in front of the whole ward.”

“Ah,” I said. I hadn’t thought about that from Samuel’s angle, but I could see now why he had worried. “Most people think I’m fairly conservative,” I said. I didn’t talk politics at church because I thought that was rude, and since I attended church and generally supported church activities, ward members probably thought I believed the same things they did.

Samuel rolled his eyes. “Most people are idiots,” he said. Which was a direct quote from me, I think.

“I try not to make waves,” I said.

“And you do a good job of it. It lets you see things that Dad doesn’t. You understand people in so many ways. You don’t judge them.”

It was an unexpected compliment, the kind of thing you don’t get often from a son, or from any child. I teared up a little, and then Samuel got embarrassed, and I knew that was the end of this conversation. Samuel might be more empathic than my other sons or than Kurt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a teenage male.

“Well,” I said.

He stood up and put his dishes in the dishwasher, not the sink, then went to get his scriptures and his tie.

I helped him with his tie, not that he wasn’t perfectly capable of doing it himself. I liked to remind him that I was still in his life, still watching out for him, even if he was nearly grown up.

We walked to church together, since it was only three blocks away. Then he went off to his priesthood classes, and I went to Relief Society.

The lesson was on the priesthood, the power and authority from God that was bestowed on men of the right age and worthiness. It was not my favorite topic. If only Brother Rhodes ever came to Relief Society. I was sure he had lists of women who had been ordained to various offices of the priesthood in the old days of the church, or women who hadn’t been ordained but had nonetheless called on the priesthood power from God to give blessings of healing, even using the holy, consecrated oils that their husbands had left behind.

But since Brother Rhodes wasn’t here and I was biting my tongue as bishop’s wife, I looked out over the women in the room and wondered how many of them were dealing with problems no one knew anything about. How many of the women were being abused? How many were having affairs? How many of them didn’t know if they would have enough money to make a house payment next week or to buy medications they needed?

Midway through the lesson, I got up and went into the bathroom. I took my time about it, too, hoping the poor teacher hadn’t been offended by my abrupt departure. It was while I was washing my hands that I saw Gwen Ferris step into the bathroom and slip into the first stall. She was red-faced and I could hear her breathing heavily through the stall door.