The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(87)

Anna closed the dishwasher and sat back down, her visage thoughtful. “I still have a hard time understanding how he could have been so different from how he appeared. Wouldn’t he have shown some sign of violence before he killed her?”

“Maybe they argued suddenly about her family. Maybe Tobias didn’t want her to take the money,” I said. Mormon men could be very prickly about that. I had once suggested to Kurt, early on in our marriage, that I could work nights and he could watch the kids. He had objected strenuously. At first I thought it was because he was afraid of being left alone with them. It was only after weeks of teasing the truth out of him that I realized it was a blow to his pride for me to admit I thought he wasn’t earning enough money to provide well for his family.

“She loved her boys so much. She poured everything into them, and into that diary,” said Anna, her voice tight.

“Well, I’m glad there is something of her still left, after all this time. She didn’t disappear. She has been found.”

“Mmm,” said Anna. She looked out the window of the small foyer. Its only view was of the dumpster in the back of the row of condos. “And what about me? What do I leave behind? How am I to avoid disappearing in the same way she did?”

“Oh, Anna.” I reached over and put my hand over hers. “I didn’t mean it like that. Tomas and Liam are your sons, too. They are your legacy.”

“They can barely speak to me.” She sounded faded, far away.

“That’s right now. But in a year or so, you’ll figure things out.” I wanted to believe it as much as I wanted her to believe it.

Anna pulled away from me. “I wonder if that’s the only reason I want to write this cookbook. So that I leave something behind of myself. Without children, it feels like it doesn’t matter, though. It’s a poor substitute to leaving behind genes.”

I wondered how many women who had families would think that leaving behind a book would matter more, because a book was something that you shaped consciously. Children, as I had learned like all women before me, were an accidental art. The more you tried to shape them, the less shape they took. Or at least it seemed that way some days.

“In any case, I may be coming home soon. To the ward.” She tried to smile about it. “The Gearys have asked to be let out of the lease and I’m inclined to let them.”

“Well, I can’t complain about that,” I said.

“I wanted to get away from it to prove who I was, that I wasn’t just Tobias’s wife. But now that I know Helena died there, I don’t know. I feel like I want to go back. I want to be where she was,” said Anna. “I want to understand her, and me. And him.”

“Her diary has really affected you,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, yes. Enormously. She was a fine writer. She has a way of making me feel like even the details of life are delicious. Every dirty sock in the laundry, every burned pot that has to be scrubbed, every burned out light bulb. They all mean something to her. They are all part of her being. She really lived life, in that diary. It makes me feel even worse that her life was so short. She made so much of it.”

“You’re not doing this out of obligation to her? Because you think that you owe her because you got her sons and her husband?” I said.

“No, it’s not like that. I want to honor her for her own sake, not for her sons or for Tobias. I’ve already done everything I could to honor her in that way.”

“You don’t think God’s asking you to stay?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m not going to put this decision on God. I prayed about marrying Tobias, and always thought it was the right thing to do. But was it, in the end? Or was I the one who wanted to marry him so badly I didn’t listen? Or was there enough good in it that God let me make the decision I wanted? I don’t think I can trust myself on what God directs me to do anymore.”

I knew that place. Sometimes I was still in that lonely place where nothing made sense except in the most obvious way. It was hard to see anything luminous in the everyday world of pain and purpose. “Well, for purely selfish reasons, I’m glad you’re moving back closer to me,” I said.

Anna laughed. “That’s why you’re the bishop’s wife, isn’t it? You make us all feel welcome, no matter what our problems are.”

If that was true, she had just offered me the best compliment of my life. Being welcome was a good feeling, and definitely one to share.





CHAPTER 30




All that night, I stewed about how to approach Alex Helm. After my experience with the Westons, I told myself that maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe no parents were really as good as I imagined they were. Maybe Kurt and I were only just beginning to see our own flaws as parents as our children grew up and started becoming parents themselves. I had always thought I was teaching my children what was right, and not what was a “foolish tradition of their fathers,” to use Book of Mormon lingo. But it was almost impossible to tell the difference. Just because I thought the Westons and the Helms were broken in terrible ways didn’t mean that I was better, or that God couldn’t love them as they were.

I wished I hadn’t reacted so impulsively the last time I saw Alex Helm. I’d been able to act calmer around the Westons; I didn’t think they had noticed that I left their house with a bad taste in my mouth. What was it about Alex Helm that brought out the worst in me? And what was it about the Westons that had made me so determined in the first place to be on their side? I wasn’t sure I liked looking at that reality. Was it because the Westons were rich and I had been reacting to a mantle of privilege? Was Alex Helm more open about his flaws? I’d always taught the boys that honesty was more important than how you looked, but was it true?